TAX REFORM
513. Ms M.J. DAVIES to the Treasurer:
Given that the Treasurer is enjoying
massive gains in taxation revenue, as evidenced across the budget, which is now
above $10 billion, the highest in the state's history, as the highest
taxing Treasurer in the state's history, why is he refusing to
undertake —
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER: Order, please!
Ms M.J. DAVIES: Why is the
Treasurer refusing to undertake any significant tax reform as part of the
budget?
Several members interjected.
The
SPEAKER: Ministers!
Unfortunately, Premier, I have to report that ministers are doing most of the
interjections and preventing you from commencing your answer. Can I hear
from just the Premier in response, please.
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
Thank you, Madam Speaker.
The first question was: why are we
not paying down debt more? The second question is: why are we not cutting taxes
more? The opposition is not only adopting contrary responses on different
weeks, but also adopting different positions
in question time in two questions. It is hard to win with this opposition. It
cannot adopt a consistent position on anything. Last year, first, we cut
payroll tax across the board, across Western Australia, for payroll tax–paying
businesses and, second, we provided a rebate for businesses with payrolls, from
memory, up to $4 million across Western Australia. Those were the two things we
did to payroll tax last year.
I recall that during the term of the
last government, when the Leader of the Opposition was a minister—I
think she is the only one over there who was
a minister—it put up land tax three times. Just so that we understand,
that tax is paid by small businesses and by mum-and-dad property investors. The
former government put up land tax three times, so much so that people
approached me on the street and at swimming pools and the like to talk about
their land tax bills. One bloke came
up to me at a swimming pool with a land tax bill in his hand and handed it to
me and told me how outraged he was, as a Liberal Party member, with the
former Barnett Liberal–National government.
Ms R. Saffioti: It would get
wet!
Mr M. McGOWAN: I know! It was
an odd exchange.
In any event, that is what occurred:
land tax went up three times. If we go back a little further to when the last Liberal–National government came to
office, stamp duty cuts were taken out of the budget when they were scheduled
to be implemented. On top of that, there were payroll tax increases while the
Liberal–National government was in office. We cut payroll tax last
year.
There is a bit of a furphy around
tax reform. What is it? Last year, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia's tax reform was to
abolish stamp duty on properties and put a new land tax on everyone's
house. I think it wanted to abolish something else—it was
payroll tax and something else. It wanted to put a new land tax of $8 000 a year
on everyone's house. Its solution for tax reform was an
across-the-board average of $8 000 a year. Frankly, I reject that out of hand—that
it would want to do that to households.
The other thing I do not want to do
is create a property bubble, as occurs in Sydney and Melbourne, and encourage
the crazy speculation that goes on over there. That version of tax reform,
which creates a property bubble so that some people in the industry get to sell
more properties and, therefore, make more money, at the same time as prices
skyrocket, is not tax reform that I want to embrace. I do not think that it is
a good idea to do that. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry put out its policy
and I thought it was ridiculous. I am not going to put a tax of $8 000 on each and every household. If that is the Leader of
the Opposition's version of tax reform, she is welcome to it. Perhaps
the Leader of the Opposition can explain in her supplementary what her version
of tax reform is.