TAB
— SALE
435. Mr P.J. RUNDLE to the Treasurer:
I have a supplementary question.
Will the Treasurer rule out increasing the point-of-consumption tax?
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
I am not aware of any proposals in
regard to that. I am unaware of any, and I have been briefed on it. I am
unaware of anything. The main thing is that we have to get revenue back to
racing. That is the main point here. The proposals I have seen, in my view, are very generous to the racing industry—very
generous indeed. We want to make sure that we reach an outcome that will give the racing industry a long-term and
successful future, and one that gives it certainty going forward, but at
the same time ensures that we do not have a TAB in Western Australia that is
small and diminishing. That is basically the
outcome. We reached that outcome
prior to COVID-19 arriving, but, unfortunately, COVID arrived and the
successful proponent, or proponents as I recall, decided that they did not want
to proceed with the purchase of the TAB, so
we had to abandon the process and start a new process. This issue has been
building for a long time—a
decade—and we are the first government that has actually taken it on.
We did have a solution, but, unfortunately,
COVID came along and scuttled that solution. We look forward to another
solution being developed.