Mr BALCH - 2000-02-22
The Commonwealth plans to pass the revenue from the GST back to the states and territories has figured prominently in the political debate lately. Can the Treasurer explain why the Territory was one of the last to sign the agreement that made that plan a reality?
ANSWER
That is an interesting point, Mr Speaker. I noticed on the television reports the meeting in Tasmania last week of Labor leaders from around the country. Kim walked into the room, Clare is right behind him with the ‘I’m following Kim’ smile on her face …
Mr STIRLING: A point of order, Mr Speaker! He knows not to refer to members by first name.
Mr SPEAKER: That is correct.
Mr REED: The Leader of the Opposition is right behind Kim with the ‘I’m following Kim’ smile on the face, and there is good reason for that, because from the point of view of disbursements that will flow to the states and territories, from the point of view of that particular meeting – it’s interesting to see the Premier of New South Wales, Mr Carr, at that meeting also, because, to get to the point, one of the questions asked by the honourable member for Jingili in relation to ‘when did we sign up’ in terms of the new tax agreement, well we were ready to sign up, we could see the benefits of it. We could see that over a 10 year period the Northern Territory would receive in the order of $220m extra due to the new tax system, we will be beneficiaries, and all Territorians will benefit in that regard. So we were ready to sign up, but we were delayed somewhat.
The Chief Minister had footprints up his back, up the coat of his suit, because Bob Carr came careering through the room from the back saying, ‘Prime Minister, let me sign first, I’m into this’, and pushed everyone else out of the way. And for Bob Carr to be at that meeting with the smiling Leader of the Opposition, ‘I’m following you, Kim’ from the Northern Territory, to have the temerity to suggest that the system is not going to benefit them, when he was the first to sign up and he clawed his way through everyone else in the room, is just the height of hypocrisy. And for the Leader of the Opposition to come back to the Northern Territory and advocate a return to the bad old days, ‘Kim will fix it all’! Kim will not tell us what he is going to roll back. Kim will not tell us if he is going to pinch the tax benefits people are going to receive from 1 July - $40 to $50 for 80% of taxpayers, $40 to $50 a week they are going to be better off in their pockets.
But into their pockets is going to be Kim Beazley’s hand taking some of those tax benefits. If he is not going to do it...
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Nhulunbuy will leave the room for one hour under standing order 240A.
Mr REED: If he is not going to reduce those tax benefits to 80% of Australian workers, then why isn’t he able to say so. Very simple, ‘I will not do it. I will not touch the pensioners’ 4% increase that they are going to receive as of July 1. I will not take the $140 that is going to be given in child support by the federal government after 1 July to dual income families with children’. If he can tell us he’s going to roll back some health and education and other areas, he can identify some of the areas, well, that’s one side of the ledger in relation to where he’s going to roll back.
Now, the honourable Leader of the Opposition has her adviser sitting right beside her ...
Ms MARTIN: A point of order, Mr Speaker! That is totally inappropriate and the Deputy Chief Minister knows it.
Mr SPEAKER: I don’t think there’s any point of order.
Mr REED: Ask, why don’t you ask your adviser, your economic adviser, how you would structure a budget? I’m sure that he must have some knowledge of how you structure a budget. I suggest the advice would be something along the lines of if your outgoings are bigger than your incomings, that is if you spend more than your revenue, you’re going to have diabolical trouble getting your budget together. That’s what Kim Beazley did do some years ago. He has priors as finance minister in sending this country into a $1000m debt. And for the Leader of the Opposition to be supporting his stance, to be supporting the fact and taking at face value that a Labor government federally would maintain funding to the states without asking: ‘Well, Kim, where does the money come from? You’re going to get less income, so how are you going to spend more money?’, will take us back to the bad old days.
At the Premiers Conference 1985, the then federal Labor Treasurer Walsh, you might recall, gave us a special negative grant, he took $3m or so off us and he called it a ‘special negative grant’. They weren’t only reducing our funding from the Commonwealth, they were being quite nasty in how they phrased the terminology. That is what she is taking us back to. You might remember, Territorians will not forget, but it was the same year that Walsh said he would take a machine gun to every Territorian because they were too much of a drain on the federal coffers. So that is where Kim Beazley is coming from. The Leader of the Opposition wants to remind him of his priors in this regard. She wants to remind him of the fact that they overspent previously when we experienced highest interest rates, highest inflation and the highest impost on Australians in relation to their economic benefits, and they do not want to go back to it.
ANSWER
That is an interesting point, Mr Speaker. I noticed on the television reports the meeting in Tasmania last week of Labor leaders from around the country. Kim walked into the room, Clare is right behind him with the ‘I’m following Kim’ smile on her face …
Mr STIRLING: A point of order, Mr Speaker! He knows not to refer to members by first name.
Mr SPEAKER: That is correct.
Mr REED: The Leader of the Opposition is right behind Kim with the ‘I’m following Kim’ smile on the face, and there is good reason for that, because from the point of view of disbursements that will flow to the states and territories, from the point of view of that particular meeting – it’s interesting to see the Premier of New South Wales, Mr Carr, at that meeting also, because, to get to the point, one of the questions asked by the honourable member for Jingili in relation to ‘when did we sign up’ in terms of the new tax agreement, well we were ready to sign up, we could see the benefits of it. We could see that over a 10 year period the Northern Territory would receive in the order of $220m extra due to the new tax system, we will be beneficiaries, and all Territorians will benefit in that regard. So we were ready to sign up, but we were delayed somewhat.
The Chief Minister had footprints up his back, up the coat of his suit, because Bob Carr came careering through the room from the back saying, ‘Prime Minister, let me sign first, I’m into this’, and pushed everyone else out of the way. And for Bob Carr to be at that meeting with the smiling Leader of the Opposition, ‘I’m following you, Kim’ from the Northern Territory, to have the temerity to suggest that the system is not going to benefit them, when he was the first to sign up and he clawed his way through everyone else in the room, is just the height of hypocrisy. And for the Leader of the Opposition to come back to the Northern Territory and advocate a return to the bad old days, ‘Kim will fix it all’! Kim will not tell us what he is going to roll back. Kim will not tell us if he is going to pinch the tax benefits people are going to receive from 1 July - $40 to $50 for 80% of taxpayers, $40 to $50 a week they are going to be better off in their pockets.
But into their pockets is going to be Kim Beazley’s hand taking some of those tax benefits. If he is not going to do it...
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Nhulunbuy will leave the room for one hour under standing order 240A.
Mr REED: If he is not going to reduce those tax benefits to 80% of Australian workers, then why isn’t he able to say so. Very simple, ‘I will not do it. I will not touch the pensioners’ 4% increase that they are going to receive as of July 1. I will not take the $140 that is going to be given in child support by the federal government after 1 July to dual income families with children’. If he can tell us he’s going to roll back some health and education and other areas, he can identify some of the areas, well, that’s one side of the ledger in relation to where he’s going to roll back.
Now, the honourable Leader of the Opposition has her adviser sitting right beside her ...
Ms MARTIN: A point of order, Mr Speaker! That is totally inappropriate and the Deputy Chief Minister knows it.
Mr SPEAKER: I don’t think there’s any point of order.
Mr REED: Ask, why don’t you ask your adviser, your economic adviser, how you would structure a budget? I’m sure that he must have some knowledge of how you structure a budget. I suggest the advice would be something along the lines of if your outgoings are bigger than your incomings, that is if you spend more than your revenue, you’re going to have diabolical trouble getting your budget together. That’s what Kim Beazley did do some years ago. He has priors as finance minister in sending this country into a $1000m debt. And for the Leader of the Opposition to be supporting his stance, to be supporting the fact and taking at face value that a Labor government federally would maintain funding to the states without asking: ‘Well, Kim, where does the money come from? You’re going to get less income, so how are you going to spend more money?’, will take us back to the bad old days.
At the Premiers Conference 1985, the then federal Labor Treasurer Walsh, you might recall, gave us a special negative grant, he took $3m or so off us and he called it a ‘special negative grant’. They weren’t only reducing our funding from the Commonwealth, they were being quite nasty in how they phrased the terminology. That is what she is taking us back to. You might remember, Territorians will not forget, but it was the same year that Walsh said he would take a machine gun to every Territorian because they were too much of a drain on the federal coffers. So that is where Kim Beazley is coming from. The Leader of the Opposition wants to remind him of his priors in this regard. She wants to remind him of the fact that they overspent previously when we experienced highest interest rates, highest inflation and the highest impost on Australians in relation to their economic benefits, and they do not want to go back to it.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016