Page 1605 - Week 08 - Thursday, 28 September 1989
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GAMING MACHINE (AMENDMENT) BILL 1989
Debate resumed from 27 September 1989 on motion by Ms Follett:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
DR KINLOCH (11.41): First, I thank the Chief Minister for the helpful briefing arranged for members and I ask her to pass on thanks to the person concerned; I thought he was excellent. Most members will, I expect, accept the notion that such a tax is proper. I have some reservations about that personally in a larger area, but they are not so considerable - and anyway, they are personal - as to object to the main purpose of this amending Bill, which is essentially a piece of necessary machinery through which an already existing tax may be changed in terms of percentages. One might quarrel about those percentages, but that is another matter. I will leave to my colleague Mr Humphries the considerable question about the proper form of legislation for raising these taxes.
I do question the underlying rationale of the proposed percentages. Clubs - that is, clubs like the Ainslie Football Club, the Southern Cross Club and so forth - are to be levied percentages ranging from 12.5 to 16 per cent. Meanwhile, hotels and taverns are to be taxed 30 per cent. I do really question that, and that seems a much harsher condition on some areas of the entertainment industry than others. I would welcome some explanation of that particular matter. Why 12.5 to 16 per cent for clubs but 30 per cent for hotels and taverns? Is that not a kind of discrimination against some enterprises in the city? I wish the Chief Minister would discuss that point.
MR HUMPHRIES (11.43): The Opposition supports this Bill and in particular the amendment to be moved by the Chief Minister. I might just comment on the nature of that. It was my contention last month that at that time current taxation laws in the ACT were inconsistent with a number of principles embodied in constitutional practice over many centuries. The principle, established first in Magna Carta and subsequently in the Bill of Rights of 1688, was that taxation levels were determined in respect of a community not in those days by the whim of the King, or in this case at the discretion of a Minister, but by the vote duly taken of the assembly of the people. Unfortunately, it was the case a few years ago that in the ACT, which was administered as a fiefdom in the federal sphere, the practice grew up of having determinations made by Ministers to constitute major levels of taxation applicable to the ACT. I am pleased to say that that trend is being reversed, and this legislation is part of that process.
Earlier this year, I think last month, the Assembly passed various Acts, namely the Rates and Land Tax (Amendment) Act, the Sewerage Rates (Amendment) Act, and the Water
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