CAR PARKING LEVY

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (14:45): My question is to the Treasurer. Following the announcement yesterday by the New Zealand government that it was scrapping its car park tax in both Wellington and Auckland because of high compliance costs, has the government established the estimated compliance cost of the Labor government's proposed new CBD car park tax? If so, what is it?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (14:45): I thank the honourable member for his question. The truth about the car parking levy, which supports the infrastructure that we are going to plough back into improving public transport in South Australia, is that it is necessary to run a modern, cosmopolitan city. I know that those in the opposition likes to think of Adelaide as a small country town, where you can actually pull up outside Harris Scarfe and do your shopping, but those days are over. We will have a completely congested and unworkable city unless we have a serious public transport system.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: Point of order, Mr Speaker: the question was about compliance costs. Can the Premier come back to the substance of the question, please?

The SPEAKER: I will listen to what the Treasurer has to say very carefully.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Any evaluation of the costs of the scheme needs to look at the costs of the benefits forgone associated with introducing this particular regime, and it is to ensure that we have a city that functions. We believe that this city is going to grow—it is our ambition to double the size of the population in the city—but that does not mean that every single person that comes into this city has to arrive by motor car. We have more car parks, in absolute terms, than New South Wales and Victoria and Perth. It is bizarre.

Mr PENGILLY: Point of order: standing order 98.

The SPEAKER: Relevance? Debate? No, I think the Premier is still supplying us with information.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: The information is that we have an extraordinarily large number of car parks in the city, which supports lots of car movements into the city. We want to encourage more people to get on transport, and the way to do that is to upgrade public transport. To upgrade that, we need to raise revenue because, if we did not raise revenue to do that, we would have howls of complaint from those opposite that we are increasing debt or doing some other grievous harm to the state's budget position.

This is just the orderly management of a modern, cosmopolitan city. It is what Perth has done, it is what Sydney has done, it is what Melbourne has done, and it is what Brisbane has done. Indeed, in each of those capitals they have levies which far exceed that. At the moment we are working out the precise shape of the levy and how that will be imposed. We want to reduce the burden and incidence on everybody who is involved in the transaction, so we will be trying to minimise those compliance costs in the way in which we design the scheme. The scheme has not yet been designed, so it's unknowable.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Well, it's being introduced—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Adelaide has been particularly rowdy today and I warn her for the first time. I also call the member for Davenport to order, and I warn the deputy leader for the second time. All bases are now loaded; there will be no further warnings for the deputy leader. The Premier.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Thank you, sir. Can I say that the salient points of the scheme are well known; what we are designing is the precise application and its operation. That is what we are consulting on and that is why, four months after announcing it, when I think it was received as a sensible policy reform, we are now seeing a campaign being run against it; people are within their rights to do that. But I think, rather than the opposition toeing in on yet another protest group, maybe they could come up with a single idea of their own.