Page 4549 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 14 December 1993
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LAND (PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENT) ACT - VARIATION TO
THE TERRITORY PLAN
Papers
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning): Madam Speaker, for the information of members, I present approval of variation No. 7 to the Territory Plan for Kambah, section 7, block 11, part of the Gleneagles Golf Course Estate, pursuant to section 29 of the Land (Planning and Environment) Act 1991. In accordance with the provisions of the Act, the variations are tabled, together with the background papers, a copy of the summaries and reports, and a copy of any direction or report required.
STAMP DUTIES AND TAXES (AMENDMENT) BILL (NO. 3) 1993
Debate resumed from 14 October 1993, on motion by Ms Follett:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.10): Madam Speaker, the Stamp Duties and Taxes (Amendment) Bill (No. 3), as the name implies, is one of a series of Bills we have considered this year in respect of taxation. Like the other Bills that have been considered by the house, it has presented the Opposition with some difficulties. I can advise the house that it is the view of the Opposition that the issues that concerned us are matters we are prepared to accept, on advice from the Government, can be resolved through the practice the Government employs in administering this legislation. It should not therefore need to result in any amendments, for example, to the legislation.
To outline briefly what this legislation is all about, it contains a number of somewhat unrelated provisions. One deals, importantly, with insurance arrangements. The Government has advised us that it believes that there was a problem, not just in the ACT but in Australia generally, with people arranging insurance outside of Australia, in particular, from companies overseas, with the result that the ACT, and possibly other Australian jurisdictions, have lost some revenue by way of stamp duty on the transactions for insurance, notwithstanding that the assets or objects being insured in this process are objects based in Australia.
The Government has sought through this Bill to ensure that a person who arranges insurance overseas - and this would apply, by the same token, in another State of Australia - with a body that is not a registered insurer will be liable for the payment of stamp duty on that contract of insurance. That concept gave us some concern initially because it entailed the concept of somebody being liable for payment of stamp duty in a way that is most unusual. For the most part, individuals who obtain insurance do not pay stamp duty directly. They pay some component of stamp duty in their premium and the insurer provides the payment of stamp duty to the government concerned.
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