Page 2160 - Week 10 - Thursday, 26 October 1989
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What is necessary is effective consultation so that the community will not suffer.
MRS GRASSBY (Minister for Housing and Urban Services) (4.03): Mr Speaker, this Government is against the avoidance of tax in any form. The erosion of tax hurts all of us in the end. Mr Kaine talked about drivers employing people across the border. Why would employers do this? The major anti-avoidance measures are in place in New South Wales anyway, so why would they do it?
Mr Kaine: No, they are not. I suggest you read the New South Wales legislation, Minister.
MRS GRASSBY: On fringe benefits, New South Wales is forming a proposal to use Commonwealth legislation as a base for defining non-cash benefits. So it is following us exactly. In other words, New South Wales is proposing to follow the ACT.
Mr Kaine: No, it is not.
MRS GRASSBY: It is. The fringe benefits tax closed some of the very large loopholes which were rorts, and even the Liberal Party has said that it will not take off fringe benefits tax if it gets back into Federal government. God help us if it ever did. These fringe benefit rorts were only able to be used by certain people. The lower class people, or people on lower salaries, had no chance of being able to do this, none whatsoever. It is the wage-earner that carries this country. It is the pay-as-you-earn taxpayer that carries it.
Mr Humphries: The lower class people?
MRS GRASSBY: Unfortunately they are on the bottom rung of the ladder, on the smallest salaries, and you want to take money away from them. You expect them to pay for all the special things that you want. I mean, you expect them to pay for the roads and everything that you need in Canberra, but allow tax avoidance by the people who can afford to pay.
As I say, it is the wage-earners, the pay-as-you-earn people, who keep this country. The tax cheats employ accountants who spend their time trying to find loopholes in the law to save them tax, when they should be paying their share.
As I say, pay-as-you-earn taxpayers pay their tax. They do not have any of these benefits. They are not getting away with it. Yet you want to give them another chance to do exactly the same thing. I am afraid I could never support this. If you pay the taxes that you should pay, then the whole country can share in it, but you only want a few people in Canberra to be responsible for paying the tax.
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