Please note: This is an extract from Hansard only. Hansard extracts are reproduced with permission from the Parliament of Tasmania.

DUTIES BILL 2001 (No. 8)

Second Reading

Mr LLEWELLYN (Lyons - Minister for Primary Industries, Water and Environment - 2R) - Mr Speaker, I move -

That the bill be now read the second time.

Mrs NAPIER - Point of order, Mr Speaker. I am aware that our shadow minister is still being briefed on these bills. They are quite sizeable bills and, as I understand it, it is a set of three cognate bills. I have to register my concern that the Government having dropped these bills on Tuesday morning, is expecting us to try to comprehensively examine a total rewrite of the Stamp Duties Act. It is totally unrealistic and I am not sure if the minister realised that such short notice had been provided. We have actually made time for Mrs Swan most of these last couple of days to try to read the bill -

Mr Llewellyn - Don't get too indignant because there is an arrangement with Mrs Swan and other people about this issue.

Mr Groom - Well, I've got a note downstairs which I understand is an undertaking given that you wouldn't bring this on until Tuesday - from one of your staff members.

Mr Llewellyn - No, we didn't do that. The Treasurer is -

Mr Groom - Well, one of our staff members has written a note to that effect.

Mr Llewellyn - I'll explain that circumstance if you'll listen.

Mrs NAPIER - Well, frankly, I can tell you we are going to move to adjourn the bill because there is no way that this Parliament, given the small Parliament it is and given the size of that set of legislation, there is no way we should be asked to deal with it in that time. It may well be that we agree with every single aspect of that bill but I think that the people of Tasmania would expect us to thoroughly study the bill and look at the issues associated with it. We are still in the middle of a briefing trying to look at some of those issues.

Mr Llewellyn - Don't get too indignant because I'll explain the circumstances that have occurred.

Mr SPEAKER - The Chair is being quite tolerant about this because we are waiting for the shadow minister to come back and, secondly, the point has been made and I will enable the minister to explain that in a moment and by that time hopefully it can be worked out. I take the point that has been raised by the Leader; I would now ask the minister to respond to it and we will see where it goes. But as far as the Standing Orders are concerned the required period of time set down has been provided.

Mrs Napier - Technically.

Mr Hidding - Don't we have pre-legislation committees in this place?

Mrs Napier - That's where such a bill should have gone, given the size of it.

Mr LLEWELLYN - The forms of the House are that you introduce the bill and you allow the bill to mature. On occasions of course we can move for the suspension of Standing Orders and take the bill earlier than that.

Mr Groom - No, you can't, you haven't got the numbers.

Mr LLEWELLYN - But Parliament has done that in the past, I am saying.

Mr Groom - But you can't do it unless we agree.

Mr LLEWELLYN - That is right and that is the reason why you have to have a period of time for the bill to mature and for people to study the bill. We made arrangements for the Opposition to be briefed with respect to the bill.

Mr Cheek - What, at 2.30?

Mr Groom - And then you bring it on!

Mr Cheek - At 4 - that's ridiculous! How can you digest the briefing?

Mr LLEWELLYN - You see, this is the indignation when you do not know the details.

Mr Groom - Point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr LLEWELLYN - I am on a point of order!

Mr SPEAKER - No, he is speaking on a point of order and we do not want another one at this stage.

Ms Putt - I actually want to hear what he says about what they arranged.

Mr LLEWELLYN - This false indignation and so on that goes on, Mr Speaker - what happened was that we tried to arrange with you for a convenient time and there was no time other than the time from 2.30 onwards. I was in the briefing room from 2.30 until the bells rang for another reason, I did not return to the briefing room but Mrs Swan did and it is now nearly 4.15 and that briefing was almost completed at that stage. I understand the circumstances associated with it and so on but it was my understanding that Mrs Swan was happy enough to take the legislation, having gone through that process. She would have preferred more time but she is -

Mrs Swan - We have agreed that this is coming forward and we do not anticipate the Government is going to change its mind but I will make a comment or two.

Mr LLEWELLYN - She is now in the Chamber, Mr Speaker, and I will read the bill the second time.

Mr GROOM - Point of order, Mr Speaker. I have a note here prepared by one of our staff members which says that Denise Swan requested a briefing. It is a point of order on the Duties Bill. A briefing by Treasury officials has been organised and will be in Committee Room 2 at 2.30 p.m. tomorrow, Thursday 15 March for any PLP member wishing to attend. I had been assured by Mr Llewellyn's office that the bill will not be brought on this week but next Tuesday. If you think I have just prepared that, I just rushed down to get it, I will table that.

Mr SPEAKER - Order. I have heard enough on the point. The situation is that it really -

Mr Groom - There was a deal done and it has been broken by the Government.

Mr SPEAKER - Yes, the point has been made. Ruling on the point of order, I say the minister is quite within his rights to bring this bill on today. What may have been the arrangements between the various parties outside the House has nothing to do with me. If the minister wants to proceed with the bill, under Standing Orders he is within his rights to do so. I call on the minister.

Mr LLEWELLYN - Just before I start, Mr Speaker, can I say that the Government was intent that we did provide the briefing for members about this.

Mr Groom - You've broken an undertaking; it's quite disgraceful.

Mr LLEWELLYN - Well, it was not an undertaking that I gave and I thought -

Mr Groom - Your office did.

Mr LLEWELLYN - I thought we had an agreement with Mrs Swan about the issue.

Mr Groom - When your office tells us that it's not on until next Tuesday -

Opposition members interjecting.

Mr LLEWELLYN - Mr Speaker, stamp duties are predominantly instrument-based duties which are imposed under the Stamp Duties Act 1931. Historically, documents were 'stamped' after payment of duty, hence the terminology of stamp duty. While this is not necessarily the case in modern times, the principle of imposing such duty remains.

Stamp duty is currently applied to a wide range of transactions including: conveyances and mortgages; transfers of motor vehicle registration; insurance policies; hire of goods; commercial property leases; hire purchase and other similar types of credit arrangements; transfers of marketable securities; a range of legal documents; and duty on debits to bank accounts and credit card accounts.

Members who have needed to look at the Stamp Duties Act 1931 would be well aware that it is a complex piece of legislation and is, in places, difficult to understand. This, together with inconsistencies in stamp duties legislation across jurisdictions, has led to a major inter-jurisdictional re-write of stamp duties legislation.

In 1994 Tasmania joined with New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory in the stamp duties re-write project. The aim of the project was to maintain separate State legislation but to utilise common principles, definitions and structures, where possible, so as to achieve reductions in compliance costs for business.

The outcome of the stamp duties re-write has resulted in each of the participating jurisdictions developing their own legislation which retains uniform structure and consistent wording where there is no underlying policy differences.

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To date, duties acts have been enacted in New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and more recently Victoria as a result of the re-write project. With the bill currently before the House, Tasmania will be the fourth jurisdiction to implement the re-write. The new legislation in Victoria is to commence on 1 July 2001 in tandem with that of Tasmania.

Mr Speaker, the Duties Bill 2001 is the primary piece of legislation in a package of legislation that replaces the Stamp Duties Act 1931 with effect from 1 July 2001. The other pieces of legislation are the Debits Duties Bill 2001 and the Taxation Administration (Consequential) Amendment Bill 2001.

The Duties Bill includes provisions relating to most stamp duties covered under the Stamp Duties Act 1931, the main exceptions being duty on transfers of quoted marketable securities and debits duties. Duty on transfers of quoted marketable securities is to cease with effect from 1 July 2001 in accordance with the GST and national tax reform arrangements outlined in the 1999 Intergovernmental Agreement on the Reform of Commonwealth-State Financial Relations - IGA.

The need for a separate Debits Duties Bill results from the way in which duty on debit transactions has been levied in Tasmania. It has always been imposed under the Stamp Duties Act 1931. This differs from other jurisdictions where it is imposed by separate legislation. As a result, debits duties were not included in the stamp duties re-write project.

If Tasmania had decided to retain debits duties in the same legislation as other stamp duties, the Tasmanian Duties Bill would substantially differ from those of other re-write jurisdictions. This was seen as undesirable; therefore the debits duties provisions have been removed and placed in separate, stand-alone legislation. However, there are no policy or revenue implications arising from this separation.

As with other taxing legislation, the standard taxation administration arrangements under the Taxation Administration Act 1997 will apply to the new Duties and Debits Duties Acts. This results in the need for the third piece of legislation in the package that amends the Taxation Administration Act 1997.

Mr Speaker, the Duties Bill 2001 is the culmination for Tasmania of the major inter-jurisdictional re-write of stamp duties legislation.

Members may recall that a draft version of the bill was released for a six-week consultation period in April 2000. This provided interested parties with an opportunity to review the bill before it was finalised. This has been further reinforced through a process of ongoing consultation with both the Law Society of Tasmania and the Australian Finance Conference, each of which raised some concerns with the draft bill released for public consultation. These concerns have been accommodated wherever possible and where they fall within the scope of the re-write.

Following the consultation period, a number of drafting changes were made to the language and structure of the bill to ensure that it more closely replicated the language used in the acts of other jurisdictions. In addition, several changes have been incorporated resulting from issues raised by tax practitioners. As a result of the significant level of inter-jurisdictional uniformity in the bill, compliance costs for business and other stakeholders will be substantially reduced.

In addition to changes required for inter-jurisdictional consistency, the Duties Bill contains Tasmania-specific changes that seek to clarify existing provisions or make adjustments to suit Tasmania's specific conditions. The resultant Tasmanian bill is similar in structure to the acts already in place in New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and Victoria. The bill is divided into chapters, each dealing with specific types of duty. This aspect of the bill alone substantially improves the readability of the legislation and reduces the time taken to find particular provisions.

Changes to the various rates of duty were not addressed in the project, as they are a matter for each individual jurisdiction to determine. For Tasmania, the re-write has been pursued on a revenue neutral basis.

While some additional revenue may result from increased anti-avoidance provisions, this will be offset through the reduction in revenue resulting from other changes designed to enhance uniformity and simplicity in the legislation. The net effect of the changes will accord with the Government's fiscal strategy that the taxation burden on Tasmanians and Tasmanian business will not be increased.

Mr Speaker, as I previously indicated, this bill provides for increased inter-jurisdictional uniformity of stamp duty provisions. This is evident in the principles and structure of the provisions dealing with the treatment of property transactions.

Mr Groom - Disgraceful the way you breached the undertaking given by your office. Absolutely disgraceful. If that's the way you do business over there, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Mr LLEWELLYN - The scope of property transfers and related transactions are now detailed in a dutiable property list. In addition, the timing of payment of duty has been aligned with that adopted in other re-write jurisdictions. This provides a far greater degree of certainty for businesses as to when a duty liability arises in Tasmania.

A further area where significant progress has been made in inter-jurisdictional uniformity is leasing. Lease duty has been restructured to more closely accord with other re-write jurisdictions. This has resulted in a lower rate of duty, but where duty is now to be applied fully over the life of the lease. The overall revenue effect of this change is expected to be nil.

Franchise arrangements are now also included under the lease head of duty. Previously these arrangements were levied under the conveyance head of duty. However, it is far more appropriate for such arrangements to be included under lease duty. The arrangements are generally very similar to lease arrangements in that they generate a stream of revenue over time, rather than a single lump sum at the time of execution, as is the case with conveyances. This change will only apply to future franchise arrangements. There will be no retrospective effect on existing arrangements that run into the future, as duty has already been assessed and paid under the existing provisions.

Another area in which significant progress has been made in inter-jurisdictional uniformity is the treatment of rental business and hire purchase arrangements. These are unified within the 'hire of goods' chapter under a policy framework that is consistent with that of the other re-write jurisdictions with respect to the duty structure, duty nexus and definitions applied. Rate differences between jurisdictions remain. These changes are expected to significantly reduce compliance costs and have been welcomed by the industry.

The longstanding common law definition of 'mortgage' is replaced in the Duties Bill with a narrower definition which has been broadly accepted by all jurisdictions that impose mortgage duty. This has also facilitated a substantial re-writing of cross-jurisdictional mortgage provisions to clarify the principles and clearly apportion duty obligations between jurisdictions. The mortgage provisions in this bill represent a major step towards harmonisation of mortgage duty provisions between jurisdictions.

Mr Speaker, the boundaries between life insurance and general insurance have been clearly defined in the Duties Bill to ensure consistency in treatment of insurance policies. This redresses a current inequity whereby general insurance policies may be dutiable at the lower life insurance rate when written by a life insurance company, or as a rider to a life insurance policy.

Members may also be aware that there has been a longstanding issue in relation to the duty treatment of used motor vehicles. Currently the duty charged on the transfer of motor vehicle ownership is based on the market value of the vehicle at the time the application to transfer is lodged. The bill changes the basis for duty on registered motor vehicles to market value or purchase price at the time of acquisition. Provided the vehicle registration has not been allowed to lapse, this addresses the existing anomaly whereby somebody buys a low-valued vehicle for restoration and is charged duty on the basis of the restored value.

Mr Speaker, the bill also includes a range of other policy adjustments. These include a reduction in the number of miscellaneous instruments which are subject to nominal duty. Similarly the types of credit arrangements subject to duty have been defined in terms of the Consumer Credit Code with the duty base adjusted from an ad valorem rate to a fixed amount. These changes will provide greater certainty and reduced compliance costs for taxpayers. Various concessions, exemptions or anti-avoidance provisions have also been introduced or extended as a result of the rewrite. These are aimed at correcting existing anomalies or closing avoidance loopholes.

Mr Speaker, the Duties Bill 2001 will result in the replacement of an outdated piece of legislation that is extremely complex and difficult to understand. In its place will be a modern, clearly set-out and more easily read piece of legislation which is consistent with similar legislation that has been enacted, or is being drafted, in a number of other jurisdictions.

The combination of increased inter-jurisdictional uniformity with modern legislation will provide benefits for both taxpayers and tax administrators. In particular, the reduction in compliance costs should offer significant savings to businesses. Mr Speaker, I commend the bill to the House.

Mrs SWAN (Lyons) - Mr Speaker, I move -

That the debate be adjourned.

The basis for the motion is the fact that this is a complex piece of legislation and it has in fact been brought in in a rush. The presentation of the bill on Tuesday and its debate here in the Chamber on Thursday, with a bill of this nature and this complexity, does the Government no credit at all. It seems quite clear that if we are to do a proper inspection of this bill and to do it proper credit when it has been in train for a number of years in order to achieve this end result, then we are certainly not going to do this job by getting up and debating the matter right at this moment.

It is of concern to me that what is clearly a misjudgment by the Government of its own lists for debate in this current sitting should result in this sort of requirement of the Opposition whereby this sort of bill is being brought forward and debated right at this minute. The fact that we have had three months off wherein the Government has had a great deal of time to arrange its listings, to bring forward legislation and prepare itself for the new sitting is something that we have to bear in mind. Clearly, the period of rest has been one that they have taken full advantage of because the Leader of Business has certainly not addressed his mind to the fact that we have to come in here and actually be prepared to debate matters that are before the House and we have drawn on this bill because you are short of other matters.

As I say, this is in accord with what we have seen and what is becoming a regular habit from this Government when it comes to matters of complex legislation. We have seen this occur in the area of racing and gaming. We have seen it occur in the matter of water legislation. In fact, any time we get an extensive bill that has been subject to a long period of rewrite of many versions - and I understand that this version is now up to version 15 - then we see the Government are prepared to bring it on and debate it forthwith as if it were a matter that was totally resolved. You appear to forget, and take some delight in doing so, that there is in fact a willing opposition sitting in the Chamber with a democratic role of inspecting the legislation properly. Your compact appears to be with a select group of representatives of interest groups and you give no concession whatsoever to the democratic role that the Opposition plays in the Parliament with respect to proper inspection of bills.

I have a great deal of concern about this matter, Mr Speaker, because I think that what we are now observing is clearly a view by the Government that they will do as they wish to do. We had a formal agreement from your officers yesterday that this would not be brought on until Tuesday. We actually get drawn out of a briefing - and I do thank the minister, I have to say, for providing that briefing to me and the officers were in fact in full train with respect to their description of the bill and I certainly thank them for that. But we have to be mindful of the fact that the bells rang calling me back to the Chamber and we had not in fact completed our inspection of the bill at all. There were still matters to be addressed. There was still the conclusion of the formal briefing.

This is an extraordinary circumstance. It is absolutely extraordinary to have the democratic process of the Parliament abused in this fashion simply because you have had a rest over your Christmas break, you have not prepared yourselves for coming back into the Chamber with enough material to fill out the list. You cannot in fact keep the agreement you made yesterday because you have not enough legislation on the Notice Paper. That is obviously not my fault, it is obviously the fault of the Government and it is something that you have to address. I simply say to you that this is an abuse of the proper democratic process of the Parliament. You are simply arrogant in your response to the way we play a role here in this Chamber and, in so responding, you are arrogant in the extreme towards the people of Tasmania because at the end of the day there has to be a proper inspection of all legislation if we are to do our duty on behalf of the people. Mr Deputy Speaker, I simply say that if the Government believes that it can continue to get away with this, it may well do so for some period of time. But eventually the people will become alert to the way in which they use this Chamber. That is to be deeply regretted and in due course it will turn around and bite you. I think this is something that you need to ta ke full account of. No doubt this motion will be defeated. No doubt we will go on to debate the matter. But I simply emphasise the point that I am still in the course of trying to gather the responses from the various interests groups. I am still in the course of being briefed by your good officers with respect to the provisions within the bill. And here we are caught mid-stream in the Chamber having to debate a matter on which I have not had a full briefing. I think this is something that you ought to go away and reflect on because it is a disgrace. It is an abuse of the process. You obviously ignore the proper parliamentary democratic principles and you stand condemned for it.

Time expired.

Mr LLEWELLYN (Lyons - Minister for Primary Industries, Water and Environment) - Mr Deputy Speaker, it is all very well for the Opposition who have now latched onto, for political purposes again this particular issue.

Mrs Swan - It is not for political purposes.

Mr Groom - If you think this is just a political stunt you should realise that the member hasn't received her full briefing yet. She has to brief the PLP and so on. You're treating Parliament with contempt.

Mr LLEWELLYN - I talked to the member who has been in charge of this legislation. While she acknowledged that she has not had a lot of time to look at the issue, she was prepared to take the bill. She was approached by the Leader of the Opposition to do something different and now she has got up dutifully and done that as a result of the approach. That is in fact what has happened. The other thing that happened was from the point of view of the order of business, I would have normally, at this stage, taken the meat hygiene amendment because that is another bill that remains to be taken and it has been on the Notice Paper for some time. I was pressed yesterday by the member for Braddon and shadow spokesman in that area, who was feeling ill, not to take that legislation today but to leave it until he returned and was able to -

Mr Groom - That's just an excuse.

Mr LLEWELLYN - take part in the debate. That is a matter that I think the Leader of the House would acknowledge. I said that would be all right - we made the arrangements during a division in the Chamber here so he could go home because he was feeling ill.

Mr Groom - That's no excuse for bringing on something like this in this rushed manner.

Mr LLEWELLYN - That bill would have normally come on at this particular time -

Mr Groom - Just adjourn the House if you haven't anything else to do.

Mr LLEWELLYN - and it may well have been on Tuesday before this bill was debated. But under the circumstances the bill was introduced on Tuesday; it has been through its maturity stage in the Parliament.

Mr Groom - Absolute minimum.

Mr LLEWELLYN - It is not the absolute minimum, I could have brought it on as the first bill this morning.

Mr Groom - Yes, but I mean two days, yes, and you have that complex legislation which we first saw on Tuesday.

Mr LLEWELLYN - The Government gave a full briefing to the member -

Mr Groom - There are 241 pages of it.

Mr LLEWELLYN - at a time that the member resolved with the Parliament. We would have hoped to provide that briefing on an earlier occasion as I understand, but there was some problem with opposition party means at the time and a time could not be resolved until 2.30 today. We tried to rearrange it to accommodate people in all respects of this. Now I get accused, the Government gets accused. I presume the Leader of the House on this side gets -

Mr Groom - You must surely recognise there's some merit in our arguments.

Mr LLEWELLYN - accused for rearranging the agenda to suit the Opposition virtually and a little bit of a stunt from that side of the Chamber.

Mr Cheek - A stunt?

Mr Groom - What is wrong is you've lost the plot.

Mr LLEWELLYN - Well it is.

Opposition members interjecting.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Order. I'll give the member for Denison the call next if he has something to add; the minister has the call currently.

Mr LLEWELLYN - Mr Speaker, I do not want to deny people their rights of having time for study of this and it is quite obvious now that this adjournment of this particular motion -

Mrs Napier - You haven't even consulted with the TCCI on this, they hadn't read it until we asked them what they thought.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Order. The minister has the call. I'll give other members the opportunity to speak when the minister has concluded.

Mrs Napier - Have you talked with the TCCI on it?

Mr LLEWELLYN - Mr Deputy Speaker, I was saying that we have, I believe, observed all the courtesies with respect to this particular matter within reason -

Mrs Swan - No, they haven't.

Mr LLEWELLYN - and the Opposition protests this too much, frankly. I mean that really is a legitimate situation and what is going to happen is that we will have a debate on this amendment, the debate will go through until almost six o'clock and we will not discuss the bill. The bill will be discussed on Tuesday in any event and that is what is going to happen as a result of the action that the Government is taking on this occasion.

Mr Groom - Well, you're agreeing with us.

Mr LLEWELLYN - I do not want to race the bill through the Chamber.

Mr Cheek - Well, you are.

Mr LLEWELLYN - I am quite prepared to have the second reading debate. I am quite prepared to go through the Committee stage clause by clause and that, quite frankly, will be the best possible briefing -

Mr Groom - What are you rushing it on for like this?

Mr LLEWELLYN - that anyone can have under the process, so I am not going to rush or gag the bill if that is what you are thinking might occur -

Mr Groom - You're going to agree to the adjournment.

Mr LLEWELLYN - and that is likely to go through until probably midday on Tuesday some time, so you will get the time to discuss the legislation.

Mr Groom - Not if you proceed now.

Mr LLEWELLYN - Why?

Mr Cheek - You reckon a second reading speech isn't important?

Mrs Swan - The second reading speech does matter.

Mr LLEWELLYN - The second reading speech - the member -

Mr Groom - The member has to make her second reading speech, consider the briefing she's received.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Order, I told the member for Denison I would give him the call next. The minister has two minutes.

Mr LLEWELLYN - Mr Deputy Speaker, I think I have probably said enough about the issue because I have explained the circumstances and I think the Government certainly bent over backwards to try to accommodate people in the process. Yes, it is a big bill but it is reflecting uniformity from other jurisdictions, it is translating the existing policy that we have in the old legislation in different words and effectively; it is not introducing new policy in the area.

Mr Cheek - So are you sure you want to scrutinise it?

Mr LLEWELLYN - It is not a piece of legislation that is going to change the hearts and minds of people other than provide a more streamlined approach for business and a more readable document. It will establish that sort of arrangement on a national basis and fit in with the -

Mr Hidding - You know it's not nearly six o'clock, it's nearly five o'clock, so Denise and I will be forced to make second reading speeches on something that we're not fully briefed on.

Mr Cheek - And that goes on the Hansard .

Mr LLEWELLYN - I thought the member had completed the briefing, frankly. The briefing could go on forever.

Mr Groom - But she has to consider any points made and do her own research.

Mr LLEWELLYN - I was there for a good portion of the briefing and I thought that we had gone through most of what the officers had had to say.

Mrs Swan - The officers were helpful but we hadn't concluded. There's no doubt that they made a very good briefing, but we still hadn't concluded.

Mr Cheek - It's easy for you, you can just go to your advisers all the time.

Mr LLEWELLYN - Anyway, as I say, I want to be accommodating, I want to help you with the arrangements and so on and I will have a talk to the Leader about the issue.

Time expired.

Mrs NAPIER (Bass - Leader of the Opposition) - I am pleased that the minister has started to recognise -

Mr Llewellyn - I've always recognised it.

Mrs NAPIER - that our request for this to be adjourned is in fact a very genuine one.

Mr Groom - Hear, hear.

Mrs NAPIER - In fact I had just gone up to the end part of the briefing because Mr Rundle had had to leave it and we were very much still in the process of going through the various chapters of the bill and looking at some of the associated issues.

Mr Llewellyn - I could take the Meat Hygiene Amendment Bill but I have told your shadow spokesman in that area that I would leave that until he came back.

Mrs Swan - It's not necessarily your fault, Minister, it is the Leader -

Mr Groom - That's not an excuse for bringing on a major bill like this at such short notice.

Mrs NAPIER - The issue that we are raising is that it is -

Mr Llewellyn - All right, if you want this adjourned that's about the only piece of legislation that I can deal with with a result.

Mr Groom - So you'll bring it on without our spokesperson being here after having agreed with him that you wouldn't bring it on.

Mrs NAPIER - Don't you have a motion you can bring on? We will debate one of the motions that your Government members have put up. That seems a reasonable way to deal with it.

Mr Groom - Yes, but to not bring on the bill - you've agreed with Bill that you wouldn't bring it on, now you're going to bring it on because you're embarrassed about it.

Mr Llewellyn -I will talk to the Leader about the question and it might be that we could adjourn a minute early or something.

Mrs NAPIER - Whilst you are talking to the Leader about it, basically what we have is a 240-page bill and certainly it would appear to be a very comprehensive and major rewrite of the stamp duties area, as I understand it, since the first bill was put together back in the 1930s. It behoves this House to deal with the detail as much as it does to be able to surface across it.

The minister is in an advantaged position because he has a staff that has been working, it seems, for several years on trying to bring together this final draft. As I understand it, this is something like the fifteenth or eighteenth -

Mrs Swan - The fifteenth version as I understand it.

Mrs NAPIER - Fifteenth version that has come forward.

Mr Groom - Is it correct now?

Mrs NAPIER - I must say that I was quite surprised when Mrs Swan found that groups like the TCCI had not had an opportunity to see this final draft.

Mrs Swan - But they've only had it for two days.

Mrs NAPIER - Two days, they've had it? Yes. I guess the issue is if you could just drop everything else and just concentrate on one large piece of legislation such as this, you probably could handle it but you, Minister, know that there are many tasks and duties that as parliamentarians we are required to perform, including being in this House, including dealing with other legislation, dealing with question time and certainly dealing with constituents. One of our major responsibilities is to represent the people in dealing with major pieces of legislation.

I know for the last two nights Mrs Swan has gone home and concentrated on pulling these bills apart and studying what was and what has been suggested the new legislation should be, so I think this Government really needs to try to come to terms with what is reasonable in relation to major pieces of legislation. Where we have a major piece of legislation, it is not acceptable to deliver this on the Tuesday and expect us to be in and ready to debate it on the Thursday, unless we indicate that yes, we have had an opportunity to see this legislation before, it has been well consulted within the community and we may well say it is reasonable to bring it on in the tighter time frame. Clearly it is not on this set of bills.

Given that we are talking about a pack of legislation that brings in about $45 million a year, as I understand it, quite rightly we have asked the question, is this package going to bring in more? Why are you bringing in the legislation as quickly and as sneakily as you appear to have done? Most of the answers I have heard from the officers make me think that there is no increased grab that is built into this legislation. But your behaviour certainly makes me think that there is more to this than meets the eye, It cannot actually be landed on the Minister for Primary Industries, Water and Environment and the minister representing the Treasurer in the House; we cannot land it just on him because this really is a matter for the Government and what alternative legislation we would have expected to be available to this House, given that we have been away from this House performing other parliamentary duties for some four months.

I must say for the last three days we have been sitting in this House, and whilst some tidying-up legislation has been coming forward, there has been nothing really substantive that has been delivered apart from these financial bills that I could see beyond perhaps the Dental Registration Bill yesterday.

Mr Llewellyn - Everything would be in the same category, though, wouldn't it? If we had another substantial bill and we brought it in on Tuesday and we wanted to debate it today, you'd have the same argument.

Mrs NAPIER - The point is, what are the rest of your ministers doing? What about the other legislation that you promised would be in this House?

Mr Llewellyn - We were too efficient at the end of last year, we got rid of all of our legislation.

Mrs NAPIER - I would have thought your smoking legislation should be here in this House.

That little comment about the fact that we are being more efficient also indicates that this Government has failed to come to terms with the fact that this is a parliament reduced in size. One of the implications of that is there are fewer people to debate a bill, therefore you get through the legislation much more quickly.

Ms Putt - Whose fault is that?

Mrs NAPIER - That is not a problem in itself, the problem is that you need to organise yourself in such a way that each individual has more time to be able to study the legislation.

There is a limit to the extent to which each individual can, in a short period of time, absorb that kind of legislation and, Minister, I trust that you have persuaded the Leader of Business in the House and the Government side to agree to adjourn this bill and we will go onto a motion put forward by one of your members or one of ours, because there is little additional legislation that you have. In fact we probably should have stayed away from Parliament for another month so that your ministers could complete their holidays.

Mr Llewellyn - We've put legislation in the Chamber.

Mrs NAPIER - You all seemed to come back in February and I have never seen so many people from the Government taking long holidays in all my life, and basically that was always evident because you kept on wheeling the bureaucrats out to deal with any questions. There might have been one minister waiting there at the time, but let us have a bit of sense.

Time expired.

Ms PUTT (Denison) - Mr Deputy Speaker, I will be supporting the adjournment of this bill despite the fact that members of the Opposition, the same as members of the Government, claimed that they were going to be so increasingly efficient with their small numbers that they would be able to handle everything perfectly adequately. I do not know why they did not do their speed reading courses over the summer and just get on with it, but I guess that is the reality of the situation. Of course a smaller Parliament was going to mean that these sorts of situations would arise with increasing frequency and anybody who thought they would not was simply ignoring the very obvious.

Mr Cheek - We thought we would have more Greens here to help us. That's the problem.

Ms PUTT - I am not going to rise to that particular taunt from Mr Cheek; he knows that the whole thing was designed to get rid of Greens.

Anyway, on the matter of this adjournment, this is clearly a series of three cognate bills with the major one being 241 pages. The relevant member for the Liberal Party, who was being briefed, could not even finish the briefing when the Government brought this on and clearly it is contemptuous of proper process that anybody should be expected to critique this bill adequately on behalf of the people that they are actually elected to represent in this Parliament this bill when they have not even finished the briefing.

Sure you might be within your rights as far as Standing Orders go, but having apparently promised that it would not come on until Tuesday you now have a range of excuses for why it has to come on earlier. That does not deal with the fact that democracy is not being served by rushing it through the Parliament now and that is the real point of it, is it not? We are not here just to provide a sham show of a democracy, we are actually here to do the proper job and my interest is in seeing that job done thoroughly because the people of Tasmania deserve that. They do not deserve to be treated as if everything the Government does simply because they bring it here must be okay, must be steamrolled through and should not be subject to informed questioning. It is informed questioning that we need. I know myself that if I am briefed on a matter I want to be able to take the full briefing; I then want to be able to go off and consider the matters that were raised and to contact other interest groups who may have a different light to shed on particular matters that have come up, so as to be properly prepared to come into Parliament and debate thoroughly all of the provisions within any particular piece of legislation.

I would have thought that any representative in the Parliament would expect to take that sort of approach in order to feel that they were doing their job properly on behalf of the people they represent. I urge the Government to think again. Please, Minister, see if you can adjourn this so we can get a considered response. Saying that we can just sort of blather on in the second reading and then get to the guts of it in the Committee stage is not really satisfactory. The second reading speech is the place for laying out a general reaction to the bill and going through the particular issues that arise and the sort of stance that will be taken on them, after which you then go into the fine detail during the Committee stage. I would hazard to say that at this stage it would be very difficult to even give a comprehensive second reading speech that thoroughly addressed all the matters that need to be raised in all their permutations.

As I say, I think that for the interests of democracy to be properly served this does need to be adjourned at this point.

Mr GROOM (Denison) - I think the minister has recognised the fact that there is merit in our arguments here and that he was incorrect when he said at the outset that this was a political stunt. The fact is we do have a job to do, we do that job to the best of our ability, we do need to fully understand legislation as far as we possibly can if we are to carry out our duties on behalf of our constituents.

The mere fact that you arranged a briefing at 2.30 p.m. for the Opposition, and for our spokesperson in particular, is very significant indeed because the spokesperson then received detailed advice from officers as to what the provisions mean, the content of the bill, but that is not the end of it. To think that she then rushes in here and immediately delivers a second reading speech is quite absurd. Such large and frankly very complex and technical legislation requires time not only to absorb the content but also to absorb the detailed briefing that you receive and, as I understand it, the briefings had not been concluded. That in itself indicates that the Government is wrong to immediately proceed with the second reading speeches. How can the spokesperson sensibly contribute to the debate having only partly received the briefing organised by the Government? But then we would have expected, and the Opposition spokesperson would have intended, that the PLP, that is our parliamentary party, would have been briefed on this matter - probably next Tuesday morning - explaining some of the content and her understanding of the bill and so on following the briefing she had received from the government officers. How can we, as members, be properly informed if this briefing has taken place today and in fact has not been concluded? It is a very detailed piece of legislation, one of the more detailed we have received in the course of the Government. There have been others but this is probably one of the larger bills we have had to contend with and it is a difficult job that we have as an opposition with the limited resources that we have available and, in this case, limited time.

You say you have complied with the requirements of the Parliament and that is correct. You have. You have brought it in within the time frame provided, but that is a minimum time frame. The two-day period provided in the Standing Orders is not the period to be pursued every time by the Government, that is the absolute minimum. When you were in opposition you did promise that as a government you would have a pre-legislation committee arrangement for major bills which the legislation committee would have the chance to absorb the details, get its advice, consider different aspects and perhaps speak with interest groups - and this is all before the debate takes place. That of course has not occurred on this occasion. You have rushed this thing in in the barest time provided for in the Standing Orders.

I would have thought it would be more reasonable for you to introduce the bill on the Tuesday this week and be willing to debate it next week some time, whether it be Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. I do not know exactly what our spokesperson would say about this but I did receive this note as a member of the PLP - and I am sure the person who signed it off would have believed it to be correct - that indicated they had been assured by the minister's office that the bill would not be brought on this week but instead next Tuesday. I have not spoken to Sandy Wittison who wrote that note which was sent out earlier to all PLP members. She is an accurate person -

Mr Llewellyn - It's obviously right that it has come from my office. I checked with the officers over there and it was the intention to bring it on on Tuesday but the Leader has rearranged the schedules - and he can explain that -

Mrs Napier - Well, where is he?

Mr Llewellyn - and as a result it has come on today. That's something that I didn't know about.

Mr GROOM - Well, the proper thing here surely is to adjourn the debate. This argument has merit in all the circumstances and we are not blaming the minister for it. I know he is probably in a difficult position and the Leader of Government Business is probably the one who should be in here explaining what is going on. It is a pity he is not in here because we want to hear from him on this. I do not know how much time is left in the debate but he is organising the program for the Government and he has put the minister in a most difficult position. To be quite frank, I think the minister is genuine about these matters and he has perhaps seen the merit of the points being made and is embarrassed that this has occurred. He is proceeding with the bill in an untimely manner, that is, without sufficient time for those members who have an interest in this to properly understand the bill and be prepared, willing and able to debate it.

It is an unfortunate set of circumstances which highlights a point made by the Leader of the Opposition that the Government has rushed in here without sufficient legislation. Yesterday we had a marvellous program - a motion about the Golden Guitars event at Devonport in government members' time. Although it was an important occasion and a great event for the north-west coast which we hope is repeated, because the Government did not have enough business to deal with they brought on a local member's interest in the Golden Guitars special event.

The point I am hearing around the community time and time again is that this Government does not do anything, that it is a do-nothing government. I am hearing it all around the place and I think other members on our side are hearing it too. When they talk about the Premier people say, 'What has he done?' When you analyse it, he has not done very much at all. I know he has gone through the motions of making lots of speeches and the PR has been excellent and so on but when you look at the substance of what has really happened in the State and what changes have occurred, you have Tasmania Together and you had the industrial relations legislation and they are the two major initiatives. Tasmania Together has its own problems and the IR bill was gutted by the Legislative Council, but they are the two major initiatives.

I suspect that the Government has not had much to do with this particular bill in that it has probably come through the department and there has been some content from over the waters on the mainland. The minister is just reading his second reading speech but I suspect he probably has not studied the bill in great detail either and he might well be in a similar position to the Opposition not knowing. That is not good enough for members of parliament because we have a serious duty and obligation to make sure we do not just rubber stamp something that has been produced by a government department. Our duty is to examine it and scrutinise it.

Time expired.

Mr CHEEK (Denison) - Mr Deputy Speaker, I just want to make a short point. I recognise that the minister is an honourable man and he is trying to do the right thing in the circumstances. He has gone from saying that we are pulling a stunt to being totally reasonable about this matter. I really think he is only the meat in the sandwich or the pawn in the game, as we have said before. For me, the rewriting of this bill has been seven years in the making and to try to put it through in 70 minutes is plainly ridiculous. I suppose before getting into Parliament you have the idea that these things are thoroughly scrutinised in every single detail, and I must admit a circumstance like this is quite a shock when you have a government that says they are very democratic and they put together things like Tasmania Together to make everybody inclusive, but in fact what they do is rush through legislation without giving us a proper chance to scrutinise it.

The TCCI did not know anything about it, they have only just got the legislation. The motor trader dealers, Mr Azzopardi, has not been contacted about it for seven months and has only just had a chance to have a look at it again. He sent it out to his motor trader dealers who want to have a look at it and they have no time, he has only just got it to them. So to try to put it through you must have, I suppose, rubber stampers from a couple of peak bodies. I do not know whether they are national or not, but certainly not from the Tasmanian ones that matter. The fact is that you are trying to put it through before motor traders, who are very interested because of the stamp duty on motor vehicle transfers, have had a chance to study it. The TCCI and motor traders and everybody else say, 'It is a very complex bill. Please can we have more time to look at it? They have not been back to us, we have not seen it.'

I think that, by the look on the minister's face, he recognises that and hopefully the Leader of Government Business in the House recognises that as well. They realise it is totally unreasonable to try to rush through this legislation in these circumstances, and the fact that our shadow minister was in the middle of a briefing when you pulled her on. I know you do not have much more legislation around and you are trying to juggle it to try to get through to the end of the week, but the facts are, doing it with this extremely complex important legislation is the wrong way to be going. Even with a minor bill it would be the wrong way to be going. Certainly with this it is totally wrong and I know you will do the right thing. You have heard our very earnest argument and I am sure if you were not swayed, you certainly will be swayed by now.

Time expired.

Debate adjourned.

Resumed from 15 March (page 92)

Mrs SWAN (Lyons) - I will just open my second reading contribution by making some comment with regard to the way the matter was brought on last Thursday and first of all to thank the minister for agreeing to the adjournment which was indeed absolutely necessary. It shows the poor state of the Government's listings and also the obviously poor procedures that they were adopting with regard to bringing on their legislation, that they were caught short last week and had to pull on a bill that they had in fact given an undertaking to the Opposition, and to my office in particular, that they would not bring on until today. So quite clearly there is something wrong with the way the Government is currently addressing its legislation.

Mr Llewellyn - The member for Braddon, as I mentioned to you, was to bring that on but we didn't because he was ill.

Mrs SWAN - I appreciate that. It still smacks of the fact that your procedural requirements with regard to the legislation that you have on your list need addressing and you clearly would understand that after four months' holiday to have your listings short to the extent that you had to breach an agreement that had been given by your office was obviously a problem. Whether or not that particular piece of legislation would have taken up the entire afternoon is a matter that remains to be seen.

Mr Llewellyn - Mr Bonde wanted the debate and I'm not sure -

Mrs SWAN - I understand that, Minister. And, as I say, I am simply emphasising what you know to be the case and that is that there is a problem in the way the Government is addressing its legislation. You accommodated us and we are thankful for it. Again I go on to say that I thank you for the briefing that you provided through your officers but of course we were pulled away from that briefing three quarters of the way through the process and called back to the Chamber in order to address that matter. That clearly is procedurally inefficient and you would be the first to recognise it, as I would understand.

When we look at the duties legislation itself it is perhaps one of the most intricate pieces of legislation that has been brought before the House of Assembly during the period of the Government's life. It was necessary to have some time to address the issue and to contact those people who had a specific interest in it and the minister would be the first to appreciate that that time was simply not forthcoming. Indeed, there are still interest groups that remain to bring forward their answers with regard to aspects of this bill and clearly you would have had a full understanding on Thursday of last week that that could not have been achieved. And to have rushed on a bill that had been through fifteen versions, as was the case last Thursday, was clearly inappropriate.

As I say, I am still waiting for responses from some interest groups and hopefully that will be something that is addressed before we finish the committee work with respect to the legislation. But when I contacted the TCCI last week they had in fact not received the final version of the bill at that stage and were indeed anxious to look at it because they have a very strong involvement in all the matters that are to do with this particular bill.

Nonetheless the Law Society had had some involvement - although, as they said, they gave up with respect to the drafting arrangements some time ago when they were satisfied that Parliamentary Counsel was in fact adopting the principles inherent in the New South Wales legislation which in fact was the dominant legislation and agreed to, as I understand it, by the participating States which involved every State I think bar Queensland.

It is important to note that the drafting arrangements are in fact now in accord with the provisions that were designed to apply across this legislation, given that it was an inter-jurisdictional matter, and that there was agreement from all States that we would have a common discipline, a common set of procedures and a common set of definitions across this whole area of tax. Notwithstanding that, there was an acceptance that the different rates that applied in different jurisdictions would continue to apply and that different policy arrangements would similarly continue to apply.

My understanding was that there was no agreement that the policy matters would be approached on a common basis. It was simply an agreement to get a uniformity of procedural requirements and definitional basis so that there would be an ease of compliance for business and as a result of that an ease of compliance, a lessening in the costs of the business compliance with this particular area of duty.

It is important, I think, that we have achieved that and of course the Opposition will not be standing in the way of the process of getting this through the House. Although we have a number of questions to ask with regard to the liability of tax and the nuances, if you like, that are applicable to Tasmania that are mentioned in the second reading speech which I think are important for the House to address during the Committee process in order to ascertain whether there are different matters that affect the liability of certain businesses and certain individuals that are impacted on by this legislation. But as I say we are certainly in favour of anything that will lessen compliance costs, will bring greater uniformity to compliance for stamp duty, and thus we would be supportive of the legislation.

I know that you indicate, Minister, that the bill has been broadly consulted on but I also note that it is being done largely at a national level with the national insurance groups, the Australian Finance Conference, with the leaders of business at the national level, in order to see where the matters are adequately addressed. And thus I put to you the concern that I have with regard to some contact at the local level, because where we are changing some local provisions it is important that we get those matters reflected in a response from those particular individuals. Motor traders, as I understand it, is one of those areas that you have addressed. I know that there have been some changes to leaseholds as well which are changes in policy at the State level, and I know that there are some areas with regard to land-rich companies and the dissolution of those companies that I have to put some questions on.

I will briefly address some of those issues and in so doing note that stamp duties of course bring into the State in actual receipts, at the conclusion of the financial year 1999-2000, $136 279 000, which represents a $9 130 000 increase on the estimated receipts of $127 149 000 at the beginning of that budget period. When we look at the list of State taxations, we can see quite clearly that this represents the third largest area of taxation quantum, if you like, in regard to State taxation in Tasmania. So it is an important area of taxation and of course it is quite clear that when we approached the matter of national tax reform, as was done some years ago by the Federal Government, the ambition was to get rid of stamp duties and all those matters that further complicated business activity in Australia. And that, unfortunately, was compromised by the moves made by the Democrats shortly thereafter in making alterations to the provisions regarding a number of services and the purchase of fresh foods that had the effect of leaving the Federal Government in a position where the compensatory factor would have been so high for the States that they had to allow the stamp duty taxation to remain in place.

Clearly there will be, over this next period of time, a move by a number of States in order to take advantage of stamp duty legislation and their own taxes in this area in order to obtain a competitive advantage. And clearly when we look further at the recent review of business taxation in Victoria we are aware that one of the recommendations by the review committee in that State is in fact to abolish stamp duties for business transactions altogether. They put forward a number of propositions that would enable that to be achieved and of course the Bracks Government will be considering those recommendations right at this moment.

But it simply underpins the fact that we now have another area of taxation which remains to be used as a competitive tool and clearly the State Government of Tasmania is in exactly the same position as every other government in having now to address a number of those matters in a real way in order to keep pace or even chase the tail of those who are already moving ahead in order to address taxation areas which are clearly a nuisance to business and impede business activity. That will remain on the table for the State Government and will be something that they will be required to address whether they like it or not. It simply underpins what we continue to tell you from this side of the Chamber and what the business community in this State also continues to tell you, and that is that, if you remain ignorant or uncompliant with respect to the need to address the competitive nature of tax and the competitive nature of the business environment then you will continue to do without the investment that you clearly need in order to increase employment in the State and to achieve what your Treasurer has indicated was his ambition - and that was to bring down the unemployment rate in Tasmania to the national average.

Clearly this is something he has not achieved and seems very unlikely to achieve in the period of this Government or even under longer tenure, because of course he is simply not adopting the correct policies. While he may talk about confidence and other matters in his ambition to present the right kind of picture as far as the Tasmanian economy is concerned, he cannot get away from the real fact that business is analytical enough to go through its books and ascertain for itself what the real picture is with regard to its own bottom line and what in fact is the fact of the matter rather than the picture put up by the Government. If you do not get down to tintacks to address this issue then you will clearly not turn the State around in the long term with regard to its proper economic growth. You will be forever reliant on the Commonwealth funding that is coming through to the coffers right now, something you refuse to acknowledge and yet of course is of considerable benefit to you right at this minute and will be on an ongoing basis with respect to your budget.

Quorum formed.

Mrs SWAN - Again, as I say, Minister, at some time there will be a day of reckoning and the fact that we are now going through a period of some constraint in the national budget will of course be something that will catch up with the Tasmanian economy, notwithstanding the lag factor in the local economy. It will certainly catch you up and that of course drives this issue even further to the fore and that is that you cannot ignore the prerequisites of business if you are to do something meaningful for the Tasmanian economy while you have the capacity to really address it, given the flexibility that has been given to you through GST revenue -

Mr Llewellyn - Rubbish! Why do you keep repeating that? You know that's not the case!

Mrs SWAN - And your response is artificial in the extreme. To hear you call for a roll-back of the very tax that is giving you the current financial flexibility you have achieved, have you ever looked through the books and worked out what you are actually achieving as a result of this new form of return from the Commonwealth? It really is magnificent, given what we have been used to in the past, not only from the point of view of certainty but from the point of view of growth. If you look at the additions you have achieved in the funding from the Commonwealth since you have been in office, clearly you are in receipt of vastly more income.

Quorum formed.

Mrs SWAN - Minister, when I can get your attention, perhaps if I could go on to indicate some of the areas of concern, and I do acknowledge that we have discussed a number of these matters with the officers during the briefing but it is my intention to place them on the record so that I obtain some assurance from you with regard to a number of the matters that have been addressed to me in this legislation. Can I commence by saying that I have currently been unable to find the provision that relates -

Quorum formed.

Mrs SWAN - Perhaps, Mr Deputy Speaker, if I could resume by addressing the minister's mind to a provision that I cannot find in the legislation - and he may be able to set my mind at ease - and that is something that we did find in the old Stamp Duties Act 1931 and something that I note is also a provision that is in the Victorian legislation, and that is the provision relating to first home owners and the concessional arrangements with respect to the two-year payback of stamp duty on a first home that was done on an interest-free basis. That may be there and I may well have missed it and if that is the case I would be very happy to be advised of it but I do note that, of course, it is a provision quite clearly marked in the 1931 legislation and it is also in the Victorian legislation which, at least on vague principles of uniformity, we would hope to see reflected in the bill before the House. Perhaps you can address that. Maybe it is there and I have missed it but I would be very pleased to be informed.

The matter of land-rich companies which I mentioned during the course of the briefing session and is of concern to the Law Society and to accountants in the State is something that I wish to address and that, I am assured by the briefing from the officers the other day, is something that has been put to rest under clause 49 of the legislation in that when there is no alteration to the beneficial ownership of land that is held by such a company, when a dissolution or a winding-up takes place, then it will not increase the duty that currently applies on that particular transaction. My understanding is that it has, to date, been a concessional rate of duty that has been applied to such transactions. I need the minister to simply confirm that.

It is something that I wish to address in Committee and similarly I want to have a full understanding that if anyone proceeds to dissolve such a company in the current circumstances - and we did have some talk about the fact that with the possible new entities tax that is being applied at the Commonwealth level, legislation I have to acknowledge that is currently being withdrawn for redrafting - then the view of a number of accountants was that this would, in fact, move on the dissolution of such companies so that that entities tax would not apply when the legislation finally comes in, so there is a great deal of concern of course if, in so doing, a duty were to be attracted through stamp duty at the State level, thus compromising anyone who was moving to dissolve such a company. For the purposes of the record, I will be investigating that further during the Committee stage of the bill and asking the minister for assurance with regard to the matter of whether or not the duty alters in any fashion at all.

Quorum formed.

Mrs SWAN - The next matter, Minister, that I wanted to address was with respect to another change of a local nature and that is with respect to the provisions relating to leaseholds - and again we did go through this matter during the briefing session - and the arrangements that now apply in that area have been altered from the provisions that currently apply and that, in fact, alters the provision applicable at the moment where the duty is charged on 1 per cent of the highest rental in any one year of the lease, to a broader provision that covers the whole period of the leasing arrangement and applies at a rate of 0.35 per cent of rental of the entire period of the lease. On that provision it seems, from the briefing that I received, that leases that travel for less than three years will in fact pay less and leases that travel for a period of longer than three years will in fact pay more.

So what we are obviously achieving is that the quantum of the revenue that will be achieved will not alter, as I am informed; however the liability will obviously change and the incidence of the payment is obviously going the change dependent on how you fit within that period of years. If you are someone who leases a house on a longer than three-year basis - and I estimate that there would be a number of people who would fall into that category - then it is likely that the impact upon you as an individual, as a result of this change in the provision, will fall more heavily than it currently does now.

I will seek the minister's reassurance and further explanation on that matter because clearly that is a matter of concern to those who are impacted upon. No doubt there will be a number of companies who lease on a longer basis than three years, so they will also be affected. But there will be some people in a residential circumstance who will no doubt bear the brunt of this particular change. So I need to know a little more with regard to that.

I am informed and I can see when I look at the legislation that the franchising arrangements similarly change. Once upon a time, of course, they were in the provisions to do with conveyancing. They attracted duty no doubt in a lump-sum arrangement or at least at the higher rate as if they were proceeding as a lump-sum arrangement. Now they are of course being treated as they are in fact, and that is as a continuing revenue base and they will be charged once more at 0.35 per cent, based on the extent of the franchise I assume. So I, once again, will seek your assurance as to what that means in revenue terms. I assume, once again, that there will be no alteration to the quantum of revenue that will be gathered from it. But I will be interested in knowing whether or not, once again, there is a differential with respect to the way the liability falls on people affected by this change in the provision.

I notice that there are a number of provisions. We talked about mortgages and I am informed and can see that there is now a narrower base for the application of the duty on mortgages. It is still an instrument-based arrangement so if in fact there is no instrument executed then there is no duty that is attracted, as I understand it, and of course there are also some changes in the area of motor vehicle transactions. I understand that one of the difficulties that we have had with respect to what duty applies with respect to vehicles that are improved before they are actually able to attract duty is addressed in this area within the bill, by choosing that the greater of the sale price or the market price at the time of the transaction of a registered vehicle is the duty that will apply. I have some further questions with respect to that particular matter and when we go into Committee I would like to put those to you.

The other matter that we did address - and I reflect back now on the dissolution of land-rich companies - was a matter that impacts on the procedure that is applied, and it has been put to me that there is an easier way of achieving the dissolution of a land-rich company and that of course is by application to the Federal Court under Corporations Law for a court order that allows a company to be dissolved. But the arrangements in clause 50 in fact prevent such a matter occurring because it quite clearly says 'the winding-up of the company' and not dissolution by the winding-up of a company, and the legal view is that it therefore precludes someone from seeking a court order in order to wind up a land-rich company or dissolve a land-rich company in a cost-effective manner. It can certainly still be done but it cannot be done under the provisions of 413 of the Corporations Law which would allow a fairly simple and cheap mechanism of obtaining a court order in order to effect that change. It will now be done through a winding-up provision.

I have been informed by the officers that that is because the Government is keen to maintain an anti-avoidance provision that is inherent in clause 50 and the addition of words such as 'dissolution by winding-up' may have the effect of altering the provisions. They again assure me that the duty provisions will not change, that clause 49 will pertain and that will be enough to maintain the current regime of duty on land-rich companies should they be dissolved. But I simply put the matter about the procedure and I will ask you further during the Committee stage about what could be done to address that issue, given the view expressed by some members of the legal profession that it would in fact be a more cost-effective way to do it and perhaps it is something that needs some looking at because it may be something that companies of that nature would wish to proceed with and of course we would like not to impede them or cause them any more cost than is necessary. So I will be seeking advice as to whether or not, by the addition of the words 'through dissolution by winding-up' would achieve the s ame aim or whether in fact it would pose some difficulty for the anti-avoidance provisions.

There are a number of other matters that I know we will address as we go through. There are timing provisions that change of course and we talked about those provisions and the uniform provision across the nation is now, as I understand it, three months with regard to the need to pay the duty. In the area of contracts for sale of realty, for example, we have had a provision that has allowed 60 days in order to stamp an instrument and then in contracts for agreements of sale of business the provision was in fact six months plus sixty days, so that particular provision will be changed and will be brought back to three months. That will be something that I would like to question you further on.

It has also been explained that in the process of a contract for sale of realty, if there was in fact a delay in the settlement time there is provision to apply to the commissioner to have the period extended for the payment of duty. In some instances, of course, we get settlement much later than the ordinary period that prevails and that could be complicating if settlement is never effected, of course, so that there is in fact a provision that exists already that would apply, so that someone could, in fact, apply to the commissioner to have the duty pushed forward until settlement was actually achieved.

As I say, Mr Deputy Speaker, there are a number of matters that I wish to address as we go through the bill. It is an intricate matter. I cannot say that I have looked at every matter within it and I suspect that if I were to have done so, I would have spent considerable time in looking at the issues. It is perhaps pertinent to say that the debits duty provision has been pulled out of the old stamp duties legislation here in this State, again to accord with uniform provisions at the national level.

We also have to note the very important provision with regard to quoted or listed marketable securities, that they are matters that will in fact not attract duty after 1 July this year in accord with the inter-governmental agreement that applies to national tax reform. So the legislation clearly reflects that and that, of course, is an important provision.

I think I can conclude at that point but can I simply conclude the address by once again addressing the minister's mind to the need to look at these sorts of provisions. Clearly he has on the record now the fact that the Victorian Government is moving to address its provisions with regard to stamp duties on business transactions and has in fact in front of it a proposal to abolish such duties. So it simply exemplifies the competitive nature of investment and of economic growth in today's marketplace and particularly in the current regime applying in Australia.

If Tasmania is to get its head out of the sand and really move on with the business of true investment growth and a true build-up in employment numbers and stop being dependent or being a welfare recipient of Commonwealth moneys and doing what it can with what is handed out at the national level, then you have to do more than you are currently doing. It is not enough to simply stand in the queue and put your hand out and say thank you very much, and then have the cheek to say at the same time that you abhor GST revenue and wish it was rolled back.

I would be delighted to know just how insistent your current Treasurer is with regard to the roll-back provisions and exactly what has been said with respect to the compensatory package that would need to be handed out to the States if that were in fact done. Quite clearly, there would need to be a lift in the rate because you would never compensate the States in the manner that they would want on the current arrangements. They certainly know when they are looking at a good thing and this, of course, is a good thing for them. It will be most interesting to see the machinations of the Federal Opposition and the State Government with respect to this particular issue because quite clearly you are attempting to conceal the true facts and your attitude to it is remarkably hypocritical for people who are so totally dependent on this line of funding.

Mr GROOM (Denison) - This bill is one that does impact upon many Tasmanians, indeed probably most Tasmanians directly or indirectly, because it provides essential laws relating to stamp duties and, of course, they apply to many different types of transactions and documents that are created in our State. It is complex; it is quite an intricate piece of legislation. It is not easy for people even with an interest in this area to fully understand the detail especially at short notice. I would like to join with my colleague in expressing, again, concern about the events of last week when the minister and the Government endeavoured to bring this bill on.

In the absolute minimum of time, according to the Standing Orders - that is, two days after it was first tabled, that was the first chance we had as an Opposition to see the bill and to try to understand it. We sought a briefing. When the briefing was taking place, at that very time the minister, probably to some degree innocently and without full knowledge, called the matter on. So here we had the absurd situation where the Government was wanting to debate the bill and the Opposition spokesperson was having a briefing from officers. We are grateful for the ultimate backdown by the Government and its agreement that it would adjourn that matter until today but we have to voice our concern again about those events. We had to make our points in this House and take points of order and move the adjournment of the debate and only after we did that did the Leader of the House, Mr Lennon, the Deputy Premier, in consultation with his colleagues, finally agree - it was like trying to pull teeth - that the matter should be adjourned until today when we could have a substantial debate. Frankly that is not good enough and it does not speak well, not only of the efficiency but its attitude to matters of that kind.

Someone was suggesting that we were simply involved in a stunt. We were not involved in a stunt; we needed more time to fully comprehend this legislation and anyone looking at the facts reasonably would have to agree that that was a fair and reasonable approach by the Opposition. We would be letting the people we represent down very badly if we had simply gone ahead with that debate and the member had made her second reading speech without consuming the detail of the bill and understanding it and without consulting. Now we have consulted and we are still waiting for some responses from those people.

When you say to the TCCI, 'Have you read this bill? Do you understand all 241 pages of it?', frankly I think they need much more time. I think you were suggesting that this was done at the Federal level. I am suspicious, I will be honest with you -

Mr Llewellyn - So would I be at the Federal level.

Mr GROOM - I am suspicious of the processes. This is not reflecting on officers or the minister or the Government of the day but the whole process where these sorts of bills are created after national discussions and meetings with bureaucrats in Canberra and other people looking at the matters trying to influence the States as to what they should do to try to achieve some uniformity or for whatever purpose. But the trouble is that so often people at the State level do not apply their minds to the finer detail of it.

This may be an exception, I do not know, but I do know from past experience that this can occur, that you are relying on the understanding of other people and on the work of other people and yet it is something which applies within our jurisdiction and we should understand it here.

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There should be people here who have gone through it with a fine-tooth comb to understand the minutiae and how it impacts upon individual Tasmanians. I hope that work is being done and we will be asking questions to be satisfied about that during the Committee stage.
But certainly it is a bill that requires close attention if we are to avoid unfairness and inequities occurring in respect to the impact of some of these provisions and the duties and rates and the way in which the duties are applied and the way in which the law might be interpreted and the procedures and so on because it is not simply the rate of duty, it is how it is done that can be relevant to individuals and when that duty applies and so on. There is a lot in this bill that we have to understand and this idea that we were meant to debate this in two days frankly is grossly unfair. It is a ridiculous situation and the Government really should have been ashamed of itself bringing it on in such a short space of time without giving the Parliament a reasonable chance to examine and understand it.

Before it came to office the Government as a party made a promise that for major pieces of legislation it would have a pre-legislation committee where bills of this kind could be examined by a committee and we could go through the detail. I believe that the House of Assembly has to be made more effective. I think we need to do a lot more work to make this case effective and satisfy the needs of the communities we represent.

As Premier, I was pleased when we introduced the Estimates committees process where even as a majority government we agreed to that process where ministers had to go through the difficulties of being cross-examined for nine or so hours about all the details of their particular portfolios. That is not an easy process to go through, as any minister who has done it would appreciate; you really have to understand your portfolio. But that in itself is a good thing and it is very helpful from the parliamentary point of view and the community's point of view that we have that sort of process in place.

We now have the chance to look at government business enterprises and question the chairmen and the relevant ministers about what is happening in those areas of operation and I think the idea, when it is a large, detailed bill, of having a committee on occasions looking at it, getting a formal briefing and questioning officers and so on before it gets to this stage has some merit, to help put in place a more modern, effective parliamentary system that makes this Parliament work and ensures that the Parliament is more effective in carrying out its duties.

I believe in the committee system; I think a large part of the future of our State Parliament is in the development of an effective committee system where the committee does have teeth, where it has resources and the committee can look at matters hopefully to some extent in a bipartisan manner, working with members from both sides of the House to look at issues of concern to the public and to find out what is going on and perhaps to improve the ultimate outcome.

I would hope the Government, because it has the numbers in this place, might again think 'Maybe we could create a system whereby, on occasions, major pieces of legislation of large impact on our community can be referred to a committee for examination'. There is something being done along those lines that are not, in a formal sense, pre-legislation committees but part of the role of the committees that the arrangements committee has been looking at. But they would have a wider role as well. So that, I think, would be a step forward.

We are still waiting for some interest groups to respond and we would like to know what they think about the bill. Again it is embarrassing and unsatisfactory when we are in the middle of the debate and we are still waiting for some responses from people having only received the bill last week. I note that the bill is based largely on agreements with some other States or there has been some discussions. And one can understand why, with modern communications in a nation like ours and indeed right around the world, there should be some degree of commonality in terms of definitions and terminology in understanding or have a common approach to the various matters contained herein. But that does not mean that we cannot sometimes go our own way in terms of rates. We are living in a very competitive world and I make this point all the time about taxation. We have to be up there and we have to be competitive and we have to provide relief to our community where and when we can to reduce the burden of taxes on the business community but also on individuals. And this bill does not only impact on the business community, it impacts on individuals in our community who want to take out a lease, who want to lease a car - I think it would apply to that situation - and all the other areas where individuals are involved in transactions that attract stamp duty.

I made the point that we should be cautious in simply accepting something created in another State - that is, on the mainland or wherever, and then we agree with the terminology. Although I agree that there should be some degree of commonality, we also have to be on the lookout for errors. We have to be on the lookout for unfairness or inequities that might be created in some common scheme where people are agreeing in various jurisdictions that this is the way we should go.

But what is the impact of this legislation on individuals? I think this is the real issue: what is the impact on individuals? And I am referring here, I say again, not simply to the rate of tax, the amount they must pay for a given transaction, but the burden of the procedures. Maybe it has become more complex; maybe there is more red tape. But what is the impact as far as paying more tax is concerned? Could the minister indicate in his response, if there will be individuals who will pay more tax as a direct result of this bill. Or will there be individuals who will pay tax as a direct result of this bill which they would not otherwise pay? It might be overcoming what you would say are loopholes and therefore you could argue that it would be fair for someone to pay tax but they would have previously avoided tax because they did not have to pay under previous legislation. And that may be the case. You might have brought more people into the net. And that might be fair because there might be some people who, in all fairness, should be paying some tax. Because Joe Blow pays tax, why should they not pay tax, in all fairness? But I would like to know more about that; we would like to know more about that. Is anyone paying more tax as a direct result of this bill? Is anyone paying some tax as a direct result of this bill? Who are they? What categories -

Quorum formed.

Mr GROOM - As I say, Mr Deputy Speaker, we need to know in precise terms what the impact of this bill is on individual Tasmanians and on Tasmanian businesses and we would like the minister to spell out clearly whether or not anyone in our State will pay more tax -

Quorum formed.

Mr GROOM - As I was saying, and I do not want to repeat myself but I think it is important that we do have the detail as to what impact this has on individuals and businesses in our State. We trust that in the response to the second reading speech the minister will actually spell that out very clearly. It has not been spelt out with sufficient clarity to this point in time and we would like to know about that. Are there people who will find that as a result of your law that you have introduced -

Mr Llewellyn - You might have to pay less tax.

Mr GROOM - Oh, some will have to pay less tax?

Mrs Swan - And some will pay more, too.

Mr GROOM - Okay, that is fair enough too. If people are paying less tax we would like to know where you are actually making concessions, where you are providing some tax relief. I was not aware that this bill was actually cutting taxes but it might do. It might be that it has been unfair in some respects and you are overcoming anomalies which impact unfairly upon individuals and that is reasonable too because I think we need both sides of the ledger.

I would like to know more about this term 'revenue neutral'. I have heard this said so many times when officers produce a bill - they work it out and it is roughly the same revenue, therefore it is revenue neutral. What do you mean by that? Do you estimate that precisely the same result will occur once this bill becomes law?

Mr Llewellyn - Within the practicalities of government.

Mr GROOM - Within the practicalities of government - so in other words it might be $250 000 or $1 million more - there is a grey area there. We would like to know really, in more precise terms, what you mean by this term.

Mr Llewellyn - We've been through this before, I can recall, on a number of occasions.

Mr GROOM - Yes, and I would like to have it on this bill too. I am sorry I was not at the briefing but I could not be there because I was in the Parliament at the time.

I would like to know how our rate of stamp duty compare with other States and if you can provide some information about that? How do we stand on stamp duty? Are Tasmanians better off than other States as far as stamp duty is concerned and where are we providing a better rate than other States? Where are we perhaps more onerous as far as stamp duty is concerned? This is relevant to this whole question of the deal we provide our community, how expensive government is in our State and this is relevant to population.

My colleague, the Leader of the Opposition, Mrs Napier, has presented, as you know, an excellent paper on population and a whole range of initiatives in that area which was well received by the community as a positive initiative by the Opposition addressing that issue in a proactive way, whereas in marked contrast the Government is sitting back on its heels doing absolutely nothing and making the obvious point that we need economic development; we need to create jobs in our State. Of course we know we need to create jobs, we need to have a strong economy. That is a given; you accept that. But on top of that you need some additional measures and moves that would actually enable us to communicate what we have to offer to other people around Australia and elsewhere around the world and show that we are keen to attract more people to our State. We are keen to bring Tasmanians home to Tasmania, young people in particular. We are keen that our people stay in Tasmania and have opportunities here. We are keen to encourage Tasmanians to have more children to increase our population because the figures are very serious indeed. I make this point because stamp duties, other revenue measures are all relevant to the total package that we have to offer our community to make us more attractive as a place for people to live in; for people to establish businesses in; for people to remain in or to come here from other places around Australia, around the world.

I would hope that when the Government looks at any measure, any measure at all, you have a population impact statement. I think that any Cabinet submission you bring forward, you should have a population impact statement. What is this going to do? Will this make our State more attractive or less attractive? Will it perhaps, maybe to a small extent, encourage people to leave our State because our rates of taxes are higher? Can we provide some concessions in the particular bill that create the revenue to make our State more attractive to keep our population here, to attract more people here? These are all relevant matters. I suspect that when you looked at this bill you did not even think of population. I might be wrong there and if I am wrong let me know but did you consider the impact this might have on our population?

We have a big job to do. If the ABS figures are correct, our population will drop away quite significantly as time goes on and this will impact upon everybody. I think, at the end of the day, it will probably mean that people will be paying more taxes because of the loss of revenue because we will still have a large infrastructure to maintain, a public service to maintain. Because we are such a dispersed community with small towns and communities right around the State, this is a very expensive State to maintain at a reasonable level. If you have fewer people that means taxes are going to go up. People are going to pay much more tax in the future as a direct result of losing population. This is why population is extremely relevant to the whole taxation issue in our State. I really feel that it is about time the Government did consider population when looking at any of these sorts of measures. Indeed, you should have on your desks, all of you, all of the ministers and on the Cabinet table - 'What about the population of Tasmania?' - a sign on there.

Mr Llewellyn - 'Four-way test' - I saw that up there on the Cabinet table.

Mr GROOM - A one-way test: 'What will this do to our population?' That is what you should have if you are fair dinkum about this. It should be on every desk including, with respect, the backbench members and everyone in the Government because that is how important this issue is.

There are a lot of other points I could make but we will raise those issues during the course of the Committee stage of this bill. It is a major bill. Again, we regret that the Government rushed this on. You can argue that is within the Standing Orders - you had two days. To bring forward a bill like this, Attorney, with two days' notice, although it is strictly in accordance with the Standing Orders, is grossly unfair to the Parliament and to our community. We should have had much more time to look at this, to go through it in some detail and understand the impact of this

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and get more briefings and consult more with our community. To be forced, on such notice, to debate this I think is quite unfair. There is still work to be done on our side on this, to receive comments from members of the community so I again highlight that fact.
I hope, Minister, that you will not do that again, that you will actually next time think twice before you bring on a bill like this. If you do bring it on then, certainly, we will make the same points that we have made but at least we thank you for agreeing last week to honour the agreement that had been reached. I know you were probably placed in a very embarrassing situation because you are generally very fair but I think it was unfair of others. If he were here I would be telling it straight to his face, Mr Lennon - I hope he is listening - to say, 'Bring it on. We've got nothing else, bring it on.' You also agreed not to pursue Mr Bonde's bill because he was ill and we appreciated that. Nevertheless, having said that, we were still very concerned about the Government trying to push this thing through.

Mrs NAPIER (Bass - Leader of the Opposition) - Mr Deputy Speaker, as has been indicated, this side of the House is supportive of the bill. Points have been well made by my colleagues that of course we do not appreciate the pressure which we were put under last week. Then there was an attempt to bring on the bill in the middle of a briefing that we were having and I thank the minister for agreeing to provide us at least the period of time of the weekend to complete our investigations and consultation.

Whilst we did have the advantage of the weekend it has not been possible to contact all persons who might necessarily have an interest in this bill so, again, this side of the House would argue that although we have made every effort to try to delve into the detail of this bill and particularly our shadow treasurer has taken on, I think, this onerous responsibility of these three major bills, these rewrites that have been under way for some time, it may well be that there is a small change that has been effected within this bill which may well have major ramifications that we may not have necessarily identified. But in good faith we have attempted to have a look at the impact of this rewrite.

Having said that, I think it is a welcome approach to clarifying and simplifying the assessment of duty in relation to a number of transactions in Tasmania and it is important for business, both in this State and elsewhere in Australia, that the regime of State duties is as consistent across jurisdictions and as simple in its application as is practically possible.

Quorum formed.

Mrs NAPIER - I understand that this bill is aimed squarely at achieving a more streamlined approach to the utilisation of common principles, definitions and structures, where possible, but I do note that the process was started in 1994 following agreements by the States of Tasmania, New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria and South Australia that a more coordinated approach would be beneficial. This of course was started under the Groom Liberal Government and it has shown that the Government has failed to appreciate the value of all the developments that were in the pipeline before the 1998 election, but should we be surprised?

The bill before us is a complicated and detailed bill. We ask for the Government to guarantee to us that this is revenue neutral. The officers have indicated, the minister's second reading speech

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says this is a revenue-neutral bill. We would ask for a guarantee that this will not result in an increase in revenue for this State beyond the CPI indexation that one might expect and I ask for the minister to make that commitment.
I would ask also for the minister to identify what the effect will be on individuals and/or companies where changes have been made for the application of changes in the way in which stamp duty is to be calculated. For example, if we look at it in relation to leases, as I understand it, under the old stamp duties regime it was applied at 1 per cent of the highest year in a lease and that has been changed to across each year of the lease at a level of 0.35 per cent. I would ask for clarification of what that actually could mean for the individual involved, and I will raise this again at the end of my speech. I am particularly interested in what State development or investment implications you think will flow as a consequence of companies moving to shorter leases. Do you expect companies and individuals to move to shorter leases as they try to minimise the amount of stamp duty that they might have to pay? As a rule, most of us are more confident; it provides greater certainty if there are longer-term leases that entities are involved in, and I would ask for an indication from the minister as to how that initiative is being viewed, why have the changes been made and what implications will it have for, in particularly, State development and investment levels? Does he see it as a potential impediment against longer-term leases? Overall however, the Opposition supports this bill and, as I said, our main concerns is to make sure that this is revenue neutral.

I note that to some extent this has been tackled by increasing the penalties for non-compliance and I would ask for an indication of whether you think that is fair and where you have had some representations about what the implications that might be. I think it is probably from the motor dealers that you might well have had some feedback. What has your response been to that?

Even the Government members might admit that if we had had more time to be dealing directly with the bill we might well have been able to say to you what we think the implications of those changes might be. I think that is one of the reasons why we asked for that guarantee.

My colleague, the shadow treasurer, has alluded in some detail to the changes in the bill and I certainly concur with her comments. In fact the kind of changes that have been made in relation to the levying of duty on the transactions in this State is certainly a major change. The very term 'stamp duty' indicates the historical significance of the way duty has been levied - that is, a stamp placed on a document to give it legal backing. However, the reality of course is that today these duties are levied on transactions not documents and this is certainly reflected in the bill; even by the dropping of the word 'stamp' from the title one might say that is reflected.

For example, in Chapter 2 which covers the bulk of transactions covered by the act they will replace the current situation where instrument or documents are duties for that situation where all listed transfers of dutiable property will be duty, so if a transaction is on the list it will be subject to duty regardless of whether an instrument has been drawn to give effect to it or not. That is certainly a big change. It is one which better reflects modern commercial realities. It is my understanding that as a consequence of that change and because of the necessity of the transaction down the list it is likely that less revenue will be raised than is currently raised in that area and I wonder if the minister could just explain that in more detail and the amount of revenue it is that is expected to be lost over the next ten to twelve years. As I understand it, beyond twelve years it is thought to be totally revenue neutral; that was certainly indicated by the officers. We did not have time on the day when the briefing was cut short to have actually quantified for us as to what size the initial revenue drop will be and how it will be reduced over those next ten to twelve years so that we can follow that and also so that business in particular can plan for that change and build it into their forward business constructs.

In relation to the balancing of that we have anti-avoidance provisions -

Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2.30 p.m.

Mrs NAPIER - Mr Speaker, I was looking at the issue of revenue implications of this particular bill and I had I asked the minister if he could give us a projection over the next ten years or for whatever time it has been done, as to what the reduction might be in terms of revenue raised because of the way in which the stamp duties have been applied over time, based on 0.34 per cent of the value of leases and transactions, as compared to 1 per cent on the highest value of the lease, and balanced against that, what the projected increase in income will be in relation to the anti-avoidance provisions. For example, in chapter 8 of the bill it sets out clear and title provisions designed to ensure motor vehicle dealers, who have the benefit of certain exemptions when buying and selling used motor vehicles, are not able to abuse these exemptions when they leave the industry and otherwise. I suppose that practice does happen from time to time but one would hope that these measures will ensure, firstly, that we know what the projected increases are overall in terms of income but, secondly, one would hope that they are not draconian relative to the offence, and I guess we can look at that once we get into the Committee stage. But I am also keen to ensure that this does not come at the expense of additional red tape for small businesses or, worse, at the expense of reasonable levels of profitability of small businesses and employers of this State. After all, as we know in this House, they are the employers. Small businesses are the employers.

Also welcome is the move to standardise the timing issues related to the payment of duties under the bill. Currently, except for the sale of land, duty must be paid within 60 days and land duty must be paid within six months and 60 days. I note that this bill changes that so that it is a common term of 90 days. The obvious problem that may arise here is that it may take more than three months from the date of signing a contract for sale of land before the sale settles. This is a practical issue and I am just raising it to ascertain how you envisage we will be able to deal with that. As I read it, that means that a purchaser may have to pay stamp duty up-front prior to settling the sale. Please correct me if that is not so. It seems to me that the purchaser will have to pay stamp duty up-front prior to settling the sale and, of course, that sale might not actually go ahead if there are problems. Is it possible that they could seek a discretionary extinction from the commissioner until the sale is complete? If you think of a discretionary extinction, you might well end up with extra legal costs. That does not increase your certainty either.

So, Minister, if you could outline how this bill proposes to deal with that problem associated with particularly the area of land, where settlement may not have been completed within the 90 days, which is the time in which the duty needs to be paid, we would appreciate clarification on that.

Other issues involve changes - I think I alluded to these earlier in the speech but I will reiterate them - to duties paid on leases. The current practice of having the amount of duty calculated on the highest annual rent for one year benefits those who enter leases over longer periods, as they only pay duty once whether the lease is for five, ten, or maybe twenty years. The bill certainly changes that and I acknowledge that it is at a lower rate, but a lower rate is levied against the total rate paid over the entire lease. I just wonder if the minister can indicate to us if he expects that that will increase the stamp duty to be received, the actual revenue base, and when will that increase lock in? Or are you expecting that as a consequence of this change everyone will move to shorter lease contracts and in fact it will be revenue neutral. Obviously, you have some views as to what impact you think this is going to have upon business behaviour and that would presumably underlie your judgment as to whether it is going to be revenue neutral or whether it is going to increase the amount of revenue that it would raise. It will also now include the value of all outgoings as well as the value of any improvements paid for by the leasee under the lease. As the rate to be levied on leases has been worked out to be revenue neutral, the direct effect of course could well be, we think, that people will move to shorter term leases. Coming back to this issue of the value of improvements, I must admit I was not aware of this and have not run into it directly. I must admit I usually get my accountant to sort out these kinds of things. When you are involved in the value of improvements made, I was not aware that stamp duty would be leviable on the value of those improvements. I will go back and have a look at some property that we have been involved in upgrading over the past couple of years, but it may well be that the accountant has that well covered because he is a very good accountant. But if that has not been consistently applied before, I would be interested as to whether this is one of the areas you are tightening up on.

Generally I think the aims of the bill are good. Although it is an incredibly long and complicated bill in the sense of the amount of detail in there, overall it seems to be very practical. But I would certainly appreciate the comments of the minister on these matters, particularly in relation to the leases and the issue of red tape. When we were having a look at the issue of stamp duty income, we were conscious that there has been some publicity in the past about the increased revenues that have been earned by not just this State but other States in terms of overall stamp duty. That is money that comes from private citizens' pockets and it reduces the amount of discretionary money they have to buy, invest or otherwise. I am conscious that when we look at one of the reforms in the bill we are dealing with today, we see that it actually allows for one of the aspects that was part of the GST agreement.

There was an agreement that, with respect to the abolition of State taxes, the timetable was: FID on 1 July 2001; stamp duty on quoted marketable securities on 1 July 2001; and debits tax on 1 July 2005, noting that the remaining taxes originally proposed to be abolished - basically as I understand it a range of business stamp tax - will be subject to a review by the ministerial council by 2005 to determine whether they should be retained or abolished. I thought it was important that our shadow minister highlighted for the minister representing the Treasurer that of course we would expect to see that stamp duty on quoted marketable securities is no longer levied within this bill because that is consistent with the GST agreement that that tax be withdrawn. Therefore, that should not be counted as a State government reduction, given that it was always acknowledged that that was to compensate for the GST income that is to be received.

I was looking at the projections for the GST coming into, you might say, a growth phase when there is no longer a need for the Commonwealth Government to compensate for under-collection in GST. I note that on figures that were originally provided by the Federal Government it was expected that the shortfall for Tasmania would be in 2000-01 about $85 million; in 2001-02 about $114 million; in 2002-03 about $65 million; and in 2003-04 about $32 million. But on the latest updated figures provided, it would appear that GST income is flowing through more than one might have thought. It is a dream of all State treasurers to have a predictable flow of income to States from which they can pay for their teachers, their police and their roads and provide essential services. They look to have better quality schools, to fix the schools - give them much better air-conditioning and cooling facilities for the heat of the summer and more friendly heaters for the winter - those kind of basic things that all schoolchildren and their teachers deserve. In terms of the shortfall from the guaranteed minimum amount of GST revenue in 2001, now you are being told that instead of being a shortfall of $85 million it is $22 million. In the year 2001-02 instead of being a shortfall of $114 million it is projecting $53 million. In the year 2002-03 we were expecting the shortfall to be about $66 million and are now talking $58 million. In the year 2003-04 we expected the shortfall to be about $32 million and they are now predicting $29 million. Certainly there is that predictability of the day coming forward when the Commonwealth will no longer need to make up for the shortfall in GST revenue relative to what has been agreed as the guaranteed minimum amount that each State shall receive. That of course is the benefit of that agreement that was made in relation to GST. That is why your Government has the benefit of significantly better certainty in the funding that you have available to plan future programs which has never been available to other governments.

I have mentioned before that one of the hardest things that happened, for example to the Rundle Government, was that not only did we receive less money than we argued that we should receive, but we were also required to pay $30 million back of the Beazley black hole that was left for the Federal Howard Government to fill. For a number of years, the State Government had to pay back for the largesse of what Beazley allowed to happen to the Federal accounts when he was Treasurer. That is why I find it difficult to stomach the two-facedness of that side of the House when they argue that there is nothing worse than the GST, yet at the same time grasp with glee the fact that, firstly, you have a guaranteed minimum amount of Federal funding that you are going to be able to receive and you know what that is forward in time, and secondly, you know that into the future, whether it is the year 2006 or whether it is the year 2007, you will be moving into a growth phase beyond that guaranteed minimum amount. It is all very well to play politics but I think we should at least get a little bit of honesty into the public debate in realising that the GST reforms have provided a base by which governments of whatever colour they might be in the future will at least have better certainty from which they can plan their ongoing expenditure. One would hope that also meant beyond the next election, given that I think the public generally are very sceptical of any government which would have basically wound back their public services, blown out their hospital waiting lists, as you have, and pinned the schools to underfunded school resource packages asking them to try to run the same program on the same figure for the next three years. Hopefully you know, even in your own electorate of Lyons, that the schools are not going to be able to survive in Tasmania on those school resource packages that have been pinned at that figure for the next three years - apart from the fact that all these other expenses are being pushed into the school resource packages, making them totally unviable.

But I say that in the context of the fact that of course many of these duties are in fact taxation incomes that you and State governments take in, in order to be able to help run their services. But

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in the context of this of course one of those stamp duties has been withdrawn in relation to shares and that of course is being acknowledged as an overall GST reform. You cannot have one and not acknowledge the other.
Overall, this side of the House supports the bill. I endorse Mrs Swan's comments in relation to the need to find some process by which land-rich companies can merge titles. The question that is being raised in this debate is whether what is allowed for in this bill will discourage the merging of titles for land-rich companies. You may, Minister, be able to provide some input on that. My final comment is, Minister, that we need your guarantee that this will be revenue neutral and that no group or individual will end up paying any more tax or duty than they currently are beyond CPI increases.

Mr CHEEK (Denison) - Mr Deputy Speaker, I sincerely hope this is at least revenue neutral as well. It would be nice to think that we were getting a few tax cuts and cuts in charges from this Government. Instead of being so desperate to make it revenue neutral, it would be nice to see them actually going the other way and cutting taxes and business charges. This is something they will need to take up in the very near future and we have already had some words from the Treasurer, Dr Crean, that he is going to look at business taxes in the next Budget. We have heard that in the past, of course, on land tax; he said he was going to look at that too, I remember a year or two ago, but we have not seen any change there at all. But we live in hope.

I must say this is a very complex bill. I am sure the minister has read it in great detail, he probably took it home to bed with him! We have had comment already last week when this bill was going to be railroaded through the House in great haste because unfortunately the Government does not look at bills. Bills are just bills to them - it does not matter whether they are two pages or 2 000 pages, it is a bill. The Deputy Leader and Leader of Government Business in the House must take a lot of responsibility for putting everybody in that very invidious position last week and, as we have said before, we do not blame the minister opposite: he was carrying out the bidding of the Government that a bill had to go on at that particular time.

It is very prevalent in this House that bills of this complex nature are just being shoved in and there is no thought at all given to the Opposition and to Ms Putt from the Greens about how, with fairly limited resources, it does take a bit of time to scrutinise these bills properly. Of course it also gives the impression that they have something to hide, they want to get it through. This is not the case all the time, anyway, but it does give that impression, I suppose, certainly to people in the House and to a lot of others outside. I think they work on the premise that nobody really comes into Parliament, nobody really knows what is going on outside so the Opposition will squeal and moan a bit but we will just ram it through. That is not always the case, as we have found out with some bills that have been put through in great haste. They end up coming back from the Legislative Council or they have to be called out and redrafted.

At least we did get a few more days on this one and the shadow treasurer has been working very hard. It is interesting to know that other people in the community who have had a chance to have a look at this bill have taken a lot of time; as we have mentioned, people like the TCCI and others have really found it a very complex and difficult bill. There is no doubt it is. To sit down and go right through it in every detail is a huge task - you would need three or four weeks, I would think, to properly scrutinise it. I do not know whether the motor traders and dealers have come

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back with their thoughts on it; they do not exactly have a booming market here at the moment, so they are probably more interested in trying to keep afloat, stay in business and make a quid than having to go through complex legislation like that. It is interesting -
Mr Llewellyn - These measures help them.

Mr CHEEK - They need to know if it is revenue neutral - I cannot see a great deal of help in it.

Mr Llewellyn - Stop backyard transactions going on.

Mr CHEEK - They have struggled with it a fair bit anyway, to really come to terms with what is in it. The Motor Trades Association - Sonny Azzopardi is also no slouch when it comes to these things and no doubt the minister would have talked to him and consulted with him on this; being the Treasurer's representative in the lower House he would have been out there talking to him. I do not know what he told him but of course -

Mr Llewellyn - The Treasurer's been out talking to him, I think.

Mr CHEEK - The Treasurer has been out talking to him. I doubt it, but anyway if you say he has I will give him the benefit of the doubt.

Mr Llewellyn - Well, I'm sure he's spoken to him.

Mr CHEEK - Apparently last week was the first time Mr Azzopardi had seen it.

Mrs Swan - It took him by surprise last week.

Mr CHEEK - It is another of these surprise bills. He had a look at it seven months ago and it has taken since 1994. All of a sudden people nearly drop dead when they actually see it in the House; they die of shock. Of course when the bill gets towards the end it is a real wheelbarrow job - getting it here quickly, wheeling it in and dumping it here. They say, 'Whew, seven years' work here, let's get rid of it as quickly as we possibly can'. A lot of people miss out on that last run home when it gets into the home straight and the tape is ahead. A lot of people miss out at that particular stage, I have found, with the bills coming from the Government. It is a very complex bill.

One thing you have tried to address in there was something that twelve months ago I had a fair bit to do with. It concerned a particular courier operator around Hobart who was totally incensed by the fact that he went out on the open market at an auction and bought a vehicle through his good business skills, you could call it, because that is what business is all about - getting a good deal in a fair and competitive way, and you cannot get anything more competitive and fair than an auction, normally. He bought it and he then repaired it, did some work on it. He might have done a bit himself, he certainly knew the right people to go to so he got it done at the right rates. Then after all that he gets charged market value when the car is transferred; for stamp duty purposes he gets charged the market value.

I noticed in your fact sheet for the second reading speech that you say that that anomaly has been addressed when now it will be either on the purchase price at the time of acquisition, which is fine provided it is transferred within a reasonable time afterwards, or the market price so you have the two choices. If that was the case he would have been okay; he bought it at a cheap price then he did a bit on it and did it up and it would have been worth more, he can transfer it at the market price. But as has been pointed out by the shadow Treasurer, when you look at the bill you find that where you have those two things, it actually says 'the greater of the purchase price at the time of acquisition or the market value of the vehicle'.

Well, if you took the greater, it would be the market value. Of course, if he is buying at a cheap price it would be the market value. That is contradictory it seems on the surface and I am sure the minister representing the Treasurer will be able to clarify that when we go into committee or when he gets to his feet again at the end of this time. It is a matter that I have a particular interest in because this businessman was quite rightly very incensed about it. I raised it and the Treasurer came out with a media release saying, 'What's Cheek on about? It's all been fixed. It's in the rewrite of the Stamp Duties Bill'. That was twelve months ago. Well, the rewrite went on and on. Finally, it is here and in the meantime this courier operator was being sent demands for the additional stamp duty that was claimed because it was put through at market value.

To my knowledge he refused to pay that. I do not know whether they kept on sending him accounts, demands and final notices or not, but he steadfastly refused to pay it because the Treasurer had already been on the public record to say that he was going to fix it and that it was not a problem. Despite that, State Revenue was still sending nasty letters demanding the extra payment. To my knowledge it was not paid and I hope that he was not continuing to get notices or having court action threatened. I hope that sanity prevailed in the long run. So let us hope that it has been fixed but there does seem to be a bit of an anomaly there.

There are a lot of things that can be said about stamp duty. I believe that the Government is wrong. Okay, they have rewritten the bill and it is part of a national rewrite. They have to look at cutting down on stamp duty and these sorts of taxes. We have the worst property market in Australia. Anybody who has invested in property, certainly commercial property, in Tasmania over the last ten years would be pretty much struggling. I think people only do it because they have this insane love of Tasmania and want to try to invest here. Goodness knows there is no incentive to do it and you have the highest land tax in Australia. You buy a property and you are hit with stamp duty of around 4 per cent or whatever it is on a sizeable transaction and it really adds to the total cost. When you are buying in Tasmania and you are not getting the capital gains of other States you really do think twice when you have all of these added imposts.

Okay, I know that the Government have painted themselves into a corner somewhat. They have not much room to manoeuvre with their Budget. They are having trouble cutting taxes. There is some talk from over there with smirks that they have a Budget surplus coming up and there will be tons of money and we all know the GST is going to be very favourable for the Government with flexibility and also with the growth tax. Why are you pointing at me, Minister?

Mr Llewellyn - Well, in seven years.

Mr CHEEK - Seven years, you say -

Mrs Swan - What have you got extra this year, David? Have you had a look at it?

Mr CHEEK - On our side of the House we believe there has been a fair bit extra coming through.

Mr Llewellyn - No extra this year, you know that.

Mrs Swan - Open up the Budget Papers and have a look at them.

Mr Llewellyn - No, you're misleading it. You'd better go back to school if that's the case.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Order. I will give the minister a turn in a moment, there is no need to get excited.

Mr CHEEK - I am very confident thankfully that in seven years' time you certainly will not be on that side of the House so if it does come to that we will be able to reap the benefit of that.

I mean, I hope you are still in parliament, I do not wish you ill but certainly you will be on this side of the House. There is no question about that and if you do not do something about cutting business taxes and charges it will be sooner rather than later.

Mr Llewellyn - I will tell you one thing, I will never be on that side of the House again.

Mr CHEEK - You never will be?

Mr Llewellyn - No.

Mr CHEEK - Well, there's a statement, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - It comes as no surprise to me, Mr Cheek.

Mr CHEEK - This is in the Hansard . Does that mean he is leaving politics early, Mr Deputy Speaker or -

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - I will leave it to you to work your assertions on that and I would suspect he is not on his own, Mr Cheek.

Mr CHEEK - and I have to say all political parties go through that experience which is all part of the learning curve of life and part of the passing parade of politics.

Seriously, it is a problem and stamp duty is a very insidious tax. You can do a rewrite to clean it up as much you like and correct anomalies. That is good and we support that, but there is no real effort to actually do something and that is what worries me about the whole thing. I put up property purchases as an example because that is where Tasmania is really missing out through lack of demand, through a falling population, even though the Government is in denial mode about that. The lack of demand is apparent and I guess I speak as a long-suffering property

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owner. If I had invested the same amount of money in New South Wales or Victoria, I would be a far richer person. Anybody who has ever bought property in Tasmania, I think as a general rule, can say that, apart from a few exceptional circumstances.
Mr Llewellyn - I can say that myself.

Mr CHEEK - Well, there you are. The minister representing the Treasurer can also say that he has been a property investor and he has not done all that well out of it.

Mr Llewellyn - No, I invested in a nice little property for an office in Latrobe that's not in the electorate any more.

Members laughing.

Mr CHEEK - And you paid stamp duty?

Mr Llewellyn - Yes, I did.

Mr CHEEK - You paid stamp duty. That makes it even worse. Did you say it was too high at the time? Are you paying land tax on it?

Mr Llewellyn - I am. I'm paying all those things.

Mr CHEEK - You are paying land tax. Do you think the land tax -

Mrs Swan - It's not conducive to business activity though, is it?

Mr Llewellyn - I'll get fined if I don't.

Mr CHEEK - So what are doing with the office if it is not in your electorate? Can I ask? Are you renting it out or have you got just sitting there?

Mr Llewellyn - I've always rented part of it.

Mr CHEEK - You rent part of it. I see.

Mr Llewellyn - I've donated the front of the office to the Axemen's Hall of Fame for the last two or three years at no cost to them.

Mr CHEEK - So you actually use it?

Mr Llewellyn - No, not any more because it is not in the electorate.

Mr CHEEK - So it is just empty.

Mr Llewellyn - No, it isn't empty.

Mr CHEEK - All right, I will not go into your property dealings anymore. I was just interested to know. Of course it would be in your pecuniary interest to register, so we can have a look there to check up and see if everything is above board.

Mr Llewellyn - Yes.

Mr CHEEK - Okay. It is interesting to know that you are a property owner and I am very pleased about that. You are investing in the State and putting your money where your mouth is, even though you bought it in the wrong electorate.

Members laughing.

Mr Llewellyn - It only became the wrong electorate a year ago. It has only been out of the electorate for a year - not quite a year yet. I've put him off his speech.

Mr CHEEK - It could be a pretty good story actually. 'A minister buying an office in the wrong electorate' - I think the national newspapers could well be quite interested in this.

Mr Llewellyn - It has been the right electorate for many years except that last year there was a boundary change, as you know.

Mr CHEEK - Then why do you not sell it?

Mr Llewellyn - I will eventually.

Mr CHEEK - And pay more stamp duty.

Mrs Bladel - What has that got to do with this debate?

Mr CHEEK - I am sorry, Mrs Bladel.

Mrs Bladel - Well, I've lost the thread now.

Mr CHEEK - Well, it was actually about stamp duty on property transactions.

Mrs Bladel - I see. Well, carry on.

Mr CHEEK - Look, I am really sorry if it is upsetting you.

Mrs Bladel - It is upsetting. I can't bear it when people ramble.

Mr CHEEK - I really try to tailor my speeches to suit you, Mrs Bladel, so I am really sorry about that.

Mrs Bladel - And watch your grammar as well.

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Mr CHEEK - We were having a good discussion with the minister and the Deputy Speaker was quite lenient. He was not too worried about it all. It was all fairly innocent. I was just pleased to discuss a property transaction with him, that is all. He raised the matter himself, I did not ask him about it. We were talking about stamp duty.

Mr Llewellyn - I wasn't talking really about stamp duty. I was saying that the value of the property has not devalued too much since I bought it.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Perhaps if I give the minister the call next, we can go into the detail of the matter.

Mr Llewellyn - Well, if the member sat down, I would get the call next.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - If you did not keep interrupting, he probably would.

Mr CHEEK - We are talking about capital gain - there is not much of it. No doubt you will eventually sell this property and pay stamp duty again.

Of course, the other thing with stamp duty is where - I know some constituents have come to me about this - a property transaction has taken place between friends or family and it has been sold below market value. I do take the point that that can be ridiculous where you have a property worth say $250 000 and you try to sell it for $100 000 or something like that but I also think if it is close to market value or nearly there or even 20 per cent off it I just believe it is money grabbing at its worst if extra stamp duty is demanded on a transaction between the family, between father/daughter, father/son, mother/daughter, whoever it might be. Really, I think it is beyond the pale to go chasing a few extra dollars on that and that is something that should be addressed if it has not already been. I just think that if you have a property worth $200 000 and you are charging a little bit less than the market value or government valuation, I think that is fair enough because it is hard enough in families to pass down a family home or something that has been in the family for some time. Whatever it is, I believe it is going too far to be grabbing stamp duty like that.

The stamp duty grab really reached great proportions in Tasmania about eighteen months ago. I do not know if the Treasurer was trying to eke out every bit he could before he started to get the benefits of the GST - that wonderful tax that is going to benefit the Labor Government so much. I do not think I should get into this subject at all; I will strike out the words 'wonderful tax'. The GST will be a great boon for State governments eventually and I think some of the benefits are starting to flow through already to this State Government.

We had a situation where a lot of landlords who had leased out properties and had a rental agreement with an agreed CPI percentage increase charged each year. You put those things in your top drawer and forget about them if you have a reasonable lease signed up. There might be a market review at the end of three years but notices were going out to people when the leases were going up and therefore increased in value for extra stamp duty. Some of this got to the ridiculous stage where people were getting billed for virtually a few cents. I cannot see whether anything has been done to really stop it or whether that has been addressed. I have tried to have a look at the bill but I have not read through it as thoroughly as some other people. Again, commonsense should prevail. Something goes up in value by the CPI on the lease but the landlord or the property owner in good faith has done all the proper things with the lease and thinks it is settled; he has paid his stamp duty on it at that original price, not thinking that every year he should be paying extra stamp duty because the lease has gone up in value through being linked to the CPI. That was another thing, I think, that certainly needed addressing.

I think getting rid of stamp duty on shares - it is only on listed securities, I think - was something that needed to happen. Which was the first State to do it? Was it Queensland or Victoria, the first State to do it? Once somebody starts off, it is pretty difficult for other people not to follow, especially with -

Mrs Swan - All going 1 July.

Mr CHEEK - All going on 1 July. A few years ago there was talk that Tasmania should be first off the mark with that and cut stamp duty on share transactions. But of course once any State did that, the other States would have to follow suit fairly quickly, otherwise they would lose business and revenue, so it stands to reason.

It would be my fervent hope that one day Tasmania will become a trendsetter and a leader in business taxes and charges and stamp duty and actually lead the way, instead of being like a cow in a herd and just following the rest of Australia. We could turn this into an entrepreneurial island that is going to lead the way. That is my fervent hope. I do not want to hear somebody say, 'Oh, isn't that terrific, we've got a revenue neutral' - we are not absolutely sure that it is going to be revenue neutral - and that it is a great victory not to be charging people more. We should be charging people less and trying to do that all the time. In the nearly three years that this Government has been there we have seen nothing in that at all. They say they have not increased taxes and charges but of course they have surreptitiously with things like the hydro levy and other things.

Mrs Swan - A new rate for motor tax, too.

Mr CHEEK - Yes, that is right. It has been by stealth. There have been no cuts, and that is what we want. I believe that Victoria is going to cut their stamp duty on business charges. Where will that leave Tasmania? I just hope we are in a position to respond. One again, we will be playing catch-up instead of leading the way because hard decisions have not been taken by this Government and the fundamental problems have not been solved. The Government is working on the premise that if you do not do anything you will not make any mistakes and therefore they will not upset too many people. Eventually somebody is going to have to do something in this little State of ours so that people will actually want to invest here instead of running away and leaving it all the time and not wanting to invest in property because they do not get any capital gain.

Quorum formed.

Mr CHEEK - Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is good to have a few more ministers in here so I can talk to them about business taxes and charges and how this Government is not doing anything to cut them and not doing anything to get on the front foot and actually do something about the situation instead of playing catch up and worrying about revenue neutral.

I will just sum up my little contribution. The rewriting of the Stamp Duties Bill did definitely need doing. I hope that little quirky anomaly on motor vehicles transfers has been fixed up to the satisfaction of business people around the place and you will tell me about that in due course. I hope that something has been done to address the stamp duty on the renting or the lease of property on a longer term basis. There were a whole lot of things in there that I would certainly would not want to go through line by line and I have not had the time to look at line by line but I have had a look at the basic thrust of the bill. The minister's very generous decision was certainly vindicated to give us a little bit longer to look at it compared to some of his colleagues.

We will support it, wanting it to be revenue neutral. This is the bottom line. I am very disappointed that it is actually not revenue detrimental to the State - in bringing down the taxes and charges, bringing down stamp duty and eventually getting rid of it altogether. It is inevitable that that will happen but we will have to wait until other States do it first before we desperately try to do something to catch up and keep up there with them.

Then we will be saying, 'Well, how are we going to do that?' That is when some of those assets that you say are not for sale may well be sold. Instead of trying to get in first, it will be all catch up and it will trying to do something as a knee-jerk reaction to try to keep up with the rest of Australia and the rest of the world.

We will go into committee now and the shadow Treasurer is quite looking forward to taking up a few points and I am sure we will get very concise, succinct answers from the minister representing the Treasurer in the lower House.

Mr LLEWELLYN (Lyons - Minister for Primary Industries, Water and Environment) - The first issue that was raised -

Quorum formed.

Mr LLEWELLYN - I think the member for Lyons, Mrs Swan, started off as did most of the other speakers by berating this side of the House for not allowing them enough time to do their homework.

I guess we take that on the chin to some extent but I do remind them that I did try to rearrange one bill if we could have discussed -

Quorum formed.

Mr LLEWELLYN - As I was saying, we did try to rearrange the business of the House because Mr Bonde was ill and I had a bill I could have taken in regard to that but nevertheless we did make some concessions and give the Opposition a further weekend to look at this matter.

Quorum formed.

Mr LLEWELLYN - The second thing that seemed to be on the minds of the members of the Opposition for some reason or other was this notion that the State Government is getting a windfall from Commonwealth payments as a result of the GST. I must admit that the Leader of

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the Opposition did put a perspective on it which was entirely different from that of her shadow spokesperson who continuously says that we have received a windfall amount of money. The Leader of the Opposition was honest enough to say -
Mrs Swan - That's from GST, you mean.

Mr LLEWELLYN - Yes - she was honest enough to say that we had not but that we had some degree of certainty.

Mrs Swan - By your own admission you've received $30 million extra.

Mr LLEWELLYN - No, I am just pointing out the difference between the Leader and yourself on that question.

Mrs Swan - Your own budget documents say you got $27.7 million out of it.

Mr LLEWELLYN - Mr Speaker, just in case the member needs some further information about this, I can give her that information. In relation to general purpose payments, Tasmania is still under the minimum guarantee arrangements, meaning that the State is receiving no more -

Mrs Swan - That's why you've got a guaranteed minimum amount which you will receive, as you know.

Mr LLEWELLYN - than it would have under the arrangements that existed before the GST. In relation to specific purpose payments, Tasmania's share of the total Commonwealth payments has not increased but is actually now less than the share it received in 1997-98.

Mrs Swan - General purpose is running at 3.9.

Mr LLEWELLYN - If she looks at page 185 of Budget Paper No. 1 she will be able to get herself up to speed on that matter.

Mrs Swan - What's the rate of take for general purpose - 3.9, isn't it? Not bad.

Mr LLEWELLYN - Under the intergovernmental agreement on the reform of Commonwealth-State financial relations, the Commonwealth distributes all the revenue it receives from the GST to the States and Territories. However the Commonwealth estimates show that Tasmania will not expect to receive -

Quorum formed.

Mr LLEWELLYN - any additional revenue from the introduction of the GST for seven years. As a result of the IGA reforms, States have been required to forgo some revenues - for example, the financial assistance grants and revenue replacement payments - and accept additional expenditure responsibilities - for example in the area of the first home owners' scheme.

So I think the comments the member is making in regard to this really are wearing a bit thin. She needs to find out what the facts are. I have tried to give them to her on a number of occasions but she takes no notice, so I can only assume it is a purely political point she is making.

Mrs Swan - I'd love to see you change the arrangement you've got.

Quorum formed.

Mr LLEWELLYN - For those who are avid readers of Hansard , what is happening in the Chamber at the moment is there are two opposition members in the Chamber. They have sent all their colleagues out of the House and they continue to call quorums in order to disrupt the business of the House. That is what is going on right at the moment - they are playing funny people and trying to trivialise the operation of the Parliament, quite frankly.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the next item that was raised by a number of members on that side of the Chamber was in regard to consultation and Treasury advisers have given me some information with regard to what has happened about the consultation and the level at which local consultation has occurred. There has been extensive consultation with interest groups and those interest groups have been all involved in the rewrite project.

Mr Cheek - How long ago?

Mr LLEWELLYN - At a national level draft proposals for uniform stamp duties legislation were released for consultation on 31 July 1995, as far back as that. This was followed by a wide-ranging industry consultation process, coordinated by the Taxation Institute of Australia. The results of this were provided in January 1996.

As I mentioned previously in the second reading speech, a draft version of the Tasmanian bill was released for a six-week consultation period in April 2000. This provided interested parties with an opportunity to review the bill before it was finalised. A wide range of potentially interested parties was notified directly of the bill's release at that time, at both the national and the Tasmanian local level. At the Tasmanian level, bodies directly notified of the bill's release included both the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce -

Mr Cheek - Did they get a chance to have a look at it? You might have notified them but did you send them the bill?

Mr LLEWELLYN - Yes - and the Motor Trades Association. The bill's release was also widely advertised in the local Tasmanian media.

Mr Cheek - The Motor Trades Association?

Mr LLEWELLYN - Yes.

Mr Cheek - When did they get theirs?

Mr LLEWELLYN - While the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry did not lodge a submission, the Motor Trades Association did. Concern raised by the Motor Trades Association was with a proposed policy change to the basis of duty on new vehicles resulted in a reversion to the existing policy. That underscores the fact that there was local consultation. Other local groups directly notified of the bill's release include the Taxpayers Association of Tasmania, the Master Builders Association, the Housing Industry Association, the Tasmanian Fishing Industry Council, the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association, the Real Estate Institute of Tasmania, the Local Government Association of Tasmania, the Tasmanian Pensioners Union, in addition to government departments and semi-government bodies such as the Office of Consumer Affairs and Fair Trading.

Consultation has continued with those bodies or individuals which have expressed ongoing interest in the bill following the initial period that was initiated in April 2000. Notable of those bodies that have continued the discussion with the review of the bill have been the Law Society and the Australian Finance Conference and concerns have been accommodated wherever possible and where they fall within the scope of the rewrite.

Mrs Swan talked about the first home owner stamp duty loans and the provision for interest-free stamp duty loans for first home owners which is actually made in the bill. The existing provisions under the Stamp Duties Act 1931 have been carried over to clauses 252 and -

Mrs Swan - In clause 52, you said.

Mr LLEWELLYN - No, clauses 252 and 253.

Mrs Swan - Okay. David, while you're doing that, the intergenerational stuff. That is there as well, is it? In that same grouping?

Mr LLEWELLYN - Yes, it is, I am advised, but we can get into that in the Committee stage.

With regard to the leases, various members have raised queries in relation to changes to lease provisions and franchise provisions. Residential leases are not taxed, the lease provision only applies to commercial leases.

Mr Cheek - Hit the poor old business people again.

Mr LLEWELLYN - This continues a long-standing policy, Bob.

Mr Cheek - That's right.

Mr LLEWELLYN - Not of hitting the business community but of the principle that the residential leases are not taxed.

The change to the basis for collecting lease duty from one per cent of the highest year leasing cost to a flat 0.35 per cent per annum rate of duty is estimated to be revenue-neutral in aggregate, although I am advised it will result in some winners and some losers. This provides a uniform rate per annum over the life of the lease. This is considered more equitable as the annual rate of duty remains the same, irrespective of the duration of the lease itself.

As lease duty is a relatively small amount of the business cost for commercial lease it is not anticipated that for those on longer term leases this will cause a business to consider Tasmania as becoming less competitive. If anything, it should increase Tasmania's business competitiveness as it will bring Tasmanian lease arrangements into line with those in other rewrite jurisdictions.

Mr Cheek - So it's going to increase our business competitiveness coming into line with the other States.

Mr LLEWELLYN - Yes, it is bringing it in line with the other States in that respect.

Mr Cheek - So we're behind the four.

Mr LLEWELLYN - Yes. With respect to franchises there may be a short-term reduction in revenue collected, as franchises will move from a conveyancing duty of 4 per cent, tax up-front, to a lease duty of again 0.35 per cent per annum for the term of that franchise arrangement. Franchises are an ongoing arrangement and it is therefore considered to be more appropriate to calculate duty over the period of the arrangement rather than on the up-front costs of the franchise itself.

Mrs Napier raised a number of issues. She referred to a short to medium term loss of revenue anticipated in Chapter 2 over a twelve-year period. This is incorrect as it relates to franchise arrangements under Chapter 4 and is due to the change from the 4 per cent flat one-off rate to the 0.3 per cent per annum rate. Revenue neutrality seemed to be a common theme also from that side of the Chamber and I think in the budget briefing, as I can recall, there was a lot of discussion about the revenue neutrality issue. Certainly the objective of the bill, as previously stated, is to streamline and modernise duties legislation to achieve reduced compliance costs for businesses.

The Government has not used this bill to raise additional revenue. Some measures in the bill to do with anti-avoidance in particular may result in certain taxpayers paying a little more while other taxpayers will pay a little less, primarily as a result again of the exemptions -

Quorum formed.

Mr LLEWELLYN - The taxpayers who pay less will do so primarily now as a result of the additional exemptions or concessions. Overall it is anticipated the bill will be revenue neutral. You cannot say that you can be absolutely accurate down to the last cent about these particular matters, but to the best possible calculations that we can make that there certainly will be tax neutrality. The statement I made in the second reading speech and again now that it is not the intention of the Government to collect additional revenue as a result of this rewrite of the bill is the definitive statement as far as that is concerned.

Mr Groom came briefly into the Chamber to join the lone member of the Opposition who is shadow spokesman for this particular bill and who is sitting on that side of the House right at the moment. He very briefly came in and then went out. The member for Lyons, Mrs Swan, asked him to leave the House because she wanted to call another quorum at sometime in the future to continue the game.

Mrs Jackson - It's very childish, isn't it?

Mr LLEWELLYN - Mr Groom commented on the rates of duty compared with other States. Rates of duty were not part of the rewrite project. With the exception of the rates as mentioned, Tasmanian rates have not changed as a result of the rewrite.

A comparison of the rates of duty is available in the public domain produced by the New South Wales Treasury on an annual basis. Penalties and anti-avoidance provisions - that was another issue that was raised. Certainly there are anti-avoidance provisions introduced in a number of areas of the bill including the motor vehicles chapter. However penalty provisions applying across the bill have tended to be reduced relative to those applying to the Stamp Duties Act 1931. This is because the administrative reasons of the Taxation Administration Act 1997 will apply to the duties legislation.

Mrs Napier also questioned whether the changes to duty liability - that is the timing of the duty liability in the bill - will result in duty being required to be paid in advance of settlement, for example in the purchase of land. The Duties Bill allows three months for payment of duty from time of agreement to purchase. In most cases this will be adequate to enable settlement to occur concurrently with the payment of stamp duty.

However in circumstances where three months is found to be insufficient time, the taxpayer may apply to the Commissioner of State Revenue for an extension of time under the provisions of the Taxation Administration Act 1997.

Mrs Napier also has questioned why the value of lessees' improvements is included in the cost for lease and if this is a new anti-avoidance provision. The value of lessees' improvements is included in the cost of the lease as this is assumed to be an arrangement in lieu of rent. It is a new anti-avoidance provision to ensure all leases are treated on a like basis for duty purposes.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I think that covers most of the points that were raised from that side of the House and I am indebted to officers for following those particular points up and providing information so that I can convey that to the members of the Opposition.

Bill read the second time.