Page 1856 - Week 06 - Thursday, 5 June 2014

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Mr Coe: Point of order.

MADAM SPEAKER: Point of order, Mr Coe.

Mr Coe: Madam Speaker, the leader’s supplementary question was with regard to rates, not any other tax, as he is talking about.

MADAM SPEAKER: My notes, Mr Barr, say that the leader’s question was: can you guarantee that rates will not triple in this half of the century? I ask you to be directly relevant to the question.

MR BARR: The factors that are increasing rates are threefold—replacement of insurance taxes, which will be abolished shortly; replacement of stamp duties; and an inflationary component. Tax reform is revenue neutral.

Mr Coe: Point of order.

MADAM SPEAKER: Point of order, Mr Coe.

Mr Coe: Madam Speaker, he is in effect ignoring your ruling. The question was: can you guarantee that rates will not triple before the second half of the century?

MADAM SPEAKER: I have drawn Mr Barr’s attention to the fact that the question was: can you guarantee that rates will not triple in the first half of this century? I have asked him to be directly relevant, but I will give him some leeway to answer the question.

MR BARR: The points of order have removed all of my time to respond.

MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Smyth.

MR SMYTH: Treasurer, what credibility do your tax reforms have if you cannot give any guarantee that rates will not triple in the first half of this century?

MR BARR: I can give the guarantee that this government will reform unfair and inefficient taxes, that we will do so gradually over an extended period of time, and that the government’s intention, once we have abolished insurance tax, is that the rate of annual rates increases will fall again. So the highest increases were in the first year of reform and each year after that we have either seen a reduction or a plateauing in rate increases, and in the future those increases will be less because there will only be one tax line left to substitute away from, and that is stamp duty. That reform takes place over a long period of time and the government, of course, retains the capacity from one budget to the next to substitute a variety of different tax lines.

If the federal white paper on tax reform and the federal white paper on reform of the federation offer further opportunities for tax reform, the government will take them. If those white papers offer the opportunity for new taxes to be levied by the commonwealth that are transitioned to the states and territories, we would certainly be interested in that option, as, I think, would other states and territories.


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