TAXES AND CHARGES

Mr MARSHALL (Norwood—Leader of the Opposition) (14:15): Does the Premier agree with Budget Paper 3, page 54, which indicates that South Australia is the highest-taxed state in the commonwealth—in Australia, sorry?

The SPEAKER: Commonwealth of Australia. Premier.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (14:15): Of course, taxation raises revenue, and revenue is used to spend on services. I can also point out that we have the highest number of nurses per capita in the nation, the highest number of doctors per capita in the nation, the highest number of police per capita in the nation, the lowest waiting times for emergency surgery in the nation in terms of our emergency waiting times, the best elective surgery waiting list times in the nation—that's what you do with revenue that you raise from taxation.

I noticed that when the opposition leader was, in his very simplistic policy, throwing money at the business sector with his payroll tax relief he did suggest that payroll tax was amongst the highest in the nation; in fact, it's not. In terms of payroll tax, we actually have the third-best payroll tax regime in the nation. The reason we chose that tax—because we have actually, in fact, increased the thresholds there and, indeed, reduced the rates—is because we—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Well, in terms of tax effort, if you go to the Commonwealth Grants Commission, we rank third.

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: If you just read the Commonwealth Grants Commission, you would be informed that we have the third-lowest tax effort in the nation in relation to payroll tax. So, to choose payroll tax as the tax to focus your attention on and say that that is the largest tax take in the nation is simply wrong. What it demonstrates is the poverty of the policy work that goes into the preparation of material by those opposite—the simplistic, lazy policy formulation process that throws up the tripe we saw on the weekend.

The SPEAKER: I would remind the Premier that he and the government are not responsible for the opposition's policies, although the tone of the question did invite that kind of out of order reply.