Page 1226 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2016
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Mr Hanson interjecting—
MR BARR: Have we got a situation where the Property Council—the socialist red raggers that are the Property Council—are suggesting that stamp duty is indeed a bad tax and there is potential for significant productivity improvements through its abolition? We have the Grattan Institute in July of 2015 and the McKell Institute in March of 2016 making similar recommendations.
Even the Prime Minister—even your boss the Prime Minister—two months ago said the following:
There are tax reform changes—
Mr Hanson: He does not like the rates he is paying at the Lodge.
MR BARR: He does not pay rates. He said:
There are tax reform changes, particularly at the state level, which every economist will tell you would give you a very significant lift to GDP. For example, if you were to replace stamp duty on property transactions, and replace it with a land tax, a general land tax, there isn’t a tax economist or theorist in the country that wouldn’t tell you that would be a good move, because taxes on transactions like sales of property obviously inhibit trade, they slow down economic activity. Everyone understands that. So that would get a policy tick.
“Everyone understands that.” Well, the Prime Minister was wrong. The Prime Minister was absolutely wrong, absolutely incorrect. Not everyone understands that. We have got at least two gentlemen in this chamber who do not understand that.
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MR BARR: There is one group in ACT politics holding out against the need for reform, one group of people whose heads remain buried in the sand, one group of people who remain wedded to unfair taxes and to inefficient taxes.
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, could we have a few minutes without your voice.
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, be quiet.
MR BARR: That group is led by the rudest member of this Assembly, the serial interjector Mr Hanson, who cannot sit tight and zip it for even 10 minutes. He cannot do that for even 10 minutes, Madam Deputy Speaker.
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