Page 2651 - Week 08 - Thursday, 14 August 2014

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We know from the Treasurer they did not want to affect the take-home pay; it is, I assume, an unintended consequence of this bill. We now know it is being directly passed through to people who do not have behind them thresholds of $1.85 million as a buffer. It is just stubbornness on the part of the Treasurer and the government to push this through tonight.

I implore you to think about what you do tonight and the families you will affect and the change you will make to how the business community views dealing with the ACT government and how, in the broad, people will view dealing with the ACT government when you can change things in this way that affect contracts that have already been signed. If you want to say Canberra is open for business, tonight somebody would adjourn this debate until we had a reasonable time to implement it or, when we get to the detail stage, you will vote for my amendment for 1 July next year. If you do not, what you are simply saying from the comfort of the Treasury benches is that you do not care about the families and about the workers in genuine small businesses in the ACT.

Motion (by Mr Coe) proposed:

That the debate be adjourned.

Question put.

The Assembly voted—

Ayes 8		Noes 9
Mr Coe	Ms Lawder	Mr Barr	Ms Gallagher
Mr Doszpot	Mr Smyth	Ms Berry	Mr Gentleman
Mrs Dunne	Mr Wall	Dr Bourke	Ms Porter
Mr Hanson		Ms Burch	Mr Rattenbury
Mrs Jones		Mr Corbell

Question so resolved in the negative.

MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (8.06): There has been quite some debate about this issue since the budget was tabled in June. This bill removes a payroll tax exemption for employment agents and it will mean that subcontractors’ wages are treated in the same way as contractors’ wages. One difficulty with the current exemption is in the interpretation of “genuine employer”, which has caused many difficulties, and this is the clause being removed from the act. This will bring us into line with other states; in fact I believe we are the only jurisdiction to have this clause at present.

In the budget the payroll tax threshold was lifted from $1.75 million to $1.85 million. This will mean that about 40 local businesses will no longer have to pay payroll tax. This is part of the government ensuring that its focus is on payroll tax being applicable to larger businesses rather than small to medium enterprises. I think this is the right application of payroll tax, as we want an environment where small business is supported, and this is balanced with ensuring consistent revenue to the ACT government.

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