Page 4290 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 7 December 1993
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There is obviously a strong group of sensible doctors who want to get back to work. I do not think the AMA is representing their interests. I know that they are not representing the interests of all of the medical profession. They seem to be interested in the AMA game. It is very difficult to settle a dispute where there are hidden agendas in operation. There is no question that there are, in my book. You could not refuse to go back and treat those sick and injured patients on the basis of the contract that has been offered, because it has been decided as being fair. You could not refuse to go back and treat those sick and injured patients on the basis that there were too many unknowns, because there are wide open guarantees in relation to that. They are guaranteed that everything they can justify they will get. There is no question about that. I do not know what all the hidden agendas are; it is very difficult to work them out. I do know that there are insufficient reasons on the public record for them to refuse to go back to work.
X-Rated Video Franchise Fee
MR KAINE: Madam Speaker, I put a question to the Chief Minister and Treasurer. Chief Minister, the High Court has finally come down with a decision in connection with the X-rated video franchise fee and ruled that we can no longer collect that, as I understand the ruling. That represents something of the order of $400,000 in this year's budget as revenue. What options have you considered to raise this money in some other way? Alternatively, where do you intend to reduce your expenditure to offset this loss of revenue?
MS FOLLETT: To answer the first part of Mr Kaine's question, the Government has not considered any options which might retain for the Territory the $380,000 or so we had expected to get via the tax on X videos. Just quickly, as Mr Kaine has touched on the decision of the High Court, I think it is equally important to note that the High Court has not ruled out the very much larger taxes concerned with liquor, tobacco and petrol. As those taxes are worth some $65m or so to the Territory in a full year, I consider that the protection of that revenue is a very welcome step by the High Court.
As to the X video tax, I have maintained ever since the Alliance Government, under Mr Kaine, introduced this tax that they got it wrong. The tax they introduced was clearly punitive. Mr Kaine said at the time, and I have not heard him retreat from it, that the tax was aimed at wiping out the X video industry in this Territory. It was clearly meant to be extraordinarily onerous on this industry, and so it has proved. Many of the original operators are in liquidation or have left town, and I do not hear a word about the so-called mates of business opposite protecting those businesses.
It is, I think, a very regrettable matter that that course of action was taken, that the Liberals attempted to ban X videos via the tax regime. They cannot deny it. It is the utmost hypocrisy on their part. The Liberals are led currently by their fifth leader in four years, a person who was recently pictured draped in the doorway of a bedroom in a brothel. I find it extremely hypocritical that the same party seeks to ban X videos when they apparently condone the actions themselves. I do not have the benefit of Mrs Carnell's empirical research on the matter, but I have been led to believe that brothels actually show X videos. I do not know whether the Liberals believe that it is all right for people to see these products in brothels but not in their own homes.
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