Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 972 ..

MR QUINLIN (continuing):

of directors, and the incomes and the comings and goings of those trusts do not necessarily distort the entries and the processing, the financial accounting, within the companies themselves.

With Mr Kaine's indulgence, this will be revamped. My recommendation is that the Government take a look at that so that the following is clearly stated: The expense for the year; the treatment of the fund itself; what we are putting into the fund; what we are taking out of the fund to pay emerging costs actual; and what is the real fund. Apologies to members for any inherent confusion.

Mr Humphries: Did you withdraw your press release?

MR QUINLAN: I will have to, will I not?

MR SPEAKER: Are you tabling an amendment to the report?

MR QUINLAN: In a verbal fashion, yes. I will do it in Hansard tomorrow. I mentioned capital works and initiatives. I had not spoken of the emergency services levy. Our report discusses the emergency services levy and asserts - it has been confirmed by the evidence we have taken - that this is a most unpopular tax. It is an inequitable tax.

I understand that the Treasurer has made statements that there are more people with insurance than there are ratepayers. This seems extremely odd. Maybe people are getting counted twice because they are paying the levy twice - once on their property and once on their contents. However, there are a lot of people not paying this tax because they do not take out insurance. Yet those people probably own property, reside in property and enjoy the services that this levy purports to cover.

This levy did not apply to emergency services. There was no increase in emergency services as a result of that levy being applied. It is simply, and always has been, a tax. The revenue has flowed into Consolidated Revenue.

Our report discusses what we consider to be the inordinate level of policy support that accrues to Ministers. We have now seen, as an initiative, a new policy group, some transferees from other departments, nevertheless some $6m over four years, flowing to personal support for the Chief Minister, over and above all of the personal staff that we have in the policy area, the advising area.

This is for a Chief Minister who has, during last year, divested function as opposed to taking it on. The objectives of that policy group are all about strengthening, support - about existing stuff - so it is not as if we stand to gain much. We look like getting a lot more of the PR that flows so steadily from this Government.

There are comments about InTACT. My one observation is that much of the expenditure of InTACT was previously justified as Y2K expenditure. Y2K has come and passed, and yet the expenditure goes on. Either those assertions were wrong or we are doing something new. We would like to see in the final budget what InTACT is doing that is new and different, seeing that we are well through a modernisation process and we are past the Y2K hump.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .