Page 2722 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 15 August 2017
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chamber—would advocate some form of negotiation with the banks, for example, over what level of tax it is appropriate for them to pay.
I note that in most other areas of taxation policy we do not generally let industry lobby groups determine what the government policy should be in that regard, and that the government, rightly, sets itself aside from that sort of pernicious lobbying that you will see from industry associations, who obviously seek to minimise the amount of tax that they pay. If all government policy were determined in consultation with industry groups, taxation in this country, I imagine, would be set at almost zero, because that would be the preferred position of most industry groups.
Whilst I acknowledge that there is always a role for engagement in relation to broad taxation policy settings, I just will not accept, and I do not think any government should accept, that industry groups will set taxation rates or that the amount of tax you pay is a negotiation. It is not. The government of the day, elected by the people, sets tax laws. That is what we do in this place, and that is what we will continue to do.
This approach of not being wholly-owned subsidiaries of industry groups is a very significant point of difference, as we have heard in this debate already on the matter of gaming. I do not need ClubsACT to tell me what my approach to harm minimisation and gambling policy will be. I have not outsourced all of my policymaking or intellectual capacity to an industry lobby group. That is not my approach to public policy. I did not stand for election in this place to outsource all of that to an industry group.
I have a very clear position, and the government has a very clear position that we took to the last election. We are implementing that policy. It is not a negotiation. ClubsACT, or any other group, is not going to come in and determine what our policy is. We have outlined our policy, and we took our policy to the last election. It was, as members opposite have acknowledged, a highly contested issue. There could not have been a more high profile issue in the last election, given the amount of money that was spent—
Mr Hanson: I think the tram was.
MR BARR: Maybe there were two. And we won on both. How about that? How about that, Madam Assistant Speaker?
In relation to questions of diversification of the economy, I note the commentary from Pegasus Economics. The government has responded to that report in some detail and to the estimates committee. But I just advise people to broaden their minds a little on the concept of diversity. Diversity in our economy does not just mean between the global public sector and the global private sector. There can be diversity and encouragement of diversity within the private sector and there can be encouragement of diversity within the public sector. So diversifying the economy is more than just the relative share of public versus private. It is what comprises the totality of the ACT economy.
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