Payroll Tax

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:18): My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer now abandon his threat to remove payroll tax relief for small businesses in South Australia?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy) (14:18): Let's be clear about this. It is not my threat: it is the parliament's. The way the payroll tax rebates have worked in the past is that companies who have a payroll tax liability pay them to the government and then the government, at the end of that period, offers them a rebate on the basis of what we offered them in the budget. What the budget proposed was a permanent tax cut. So what the opposition actually blocked was us lowering the rate, which means that those businesses now have a legal requirement to pay the full amount of payroll tax. It is not us who have done it: it is the opposition. It is not us who have done this.

The opposition has actually gone to small businesses and said, 'We are going to block this 2½ per cent payroll tax rate that the government has offered you in the budget bill so the banks don't pay their fair share of tax,' and now he is complaining. So what we have to do now—this is exactly the procedure that is in place now. Those small businesses, because of the opposition, have a legal requirement to pay their payroll tax. I can't levy people, like the foreign investment tax on foreigners who are buying up residential properties in competition with South Australians, because we want to. I have no legal authority to do so. The opposition have said that this weekend at every auction, that every time a foreign investor competes against a South Australian—

Mr GARDNER: Point of order, sir: the Treasurer has strayed from the question, which was whether he would withdraw his threat to small business—

The SPEAKER: I don't think he actually has, because although the opposition has not formed a government in South Australia since 2002 and is therefore generally not responsible for budgetary matters, on this case it is a matter of record how the other place has voted. So I think the Treasurer is being germane and I do not uphold the point of order.

Mr GARDNER: Sir, that wasn't the purpose of the point of order. He's now talking about the foreign investment tax, which was not related to the question.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Morialta has just conceded that the matter about which the Treasurer is talking was in the bill. Treasurer.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The Budget Measures Bill is the budget. It is our expression of what we wanted to do. We were offering South Australian businesses tax cuts. We were protecting first-home owners and young South Australians, who want to buy properties, from foreign investors using the purchasing power from foreign governments. We wanted to protect them. We were trying to use the profits—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Morialta is on two warnings. Was that his dulcet tone I heard?

An honourable member: It was the member for Mitchell, sir.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The Budget Measures Bill needs to be considered as a whole. You cannot just disaggregate parts of it and say, 'We'll just remove that part,' because, as I said earlier, we have to consider this as a whole. We have to now go back to the beginning. Now there is a legal requirement, because of the opposition's actions in the upper house, for businesses to pay a higher payroll tax. That is the consequence of their vote. Not our vote; theirs, not us. We wanted to lower people's payroll taxes. We wanted to offer South Australian small businesses tax cuts of up to $10,000 per year. The opposition blocked it so the banks wouldn't have to pay more tax—their fair share of tax.

I also note that when the commonwealth government introduced exactly the same measure, members opposite were silent. Nothing! Yet they have told us, subsequently, that they always opposed it. The message there is: even when they oppose the commonwealth government's measures, they will stay quiet. That's the message from the Leader of the Opposition. He admitted it; he confessed it on radio. He didn't like Scott Morrison's major bank levy, he just kept quiet about it. What else doesn't he like about what Scott Morrison has done that he's keeping quiet?

Mr GARDNER: Point of order, sir: this is debate.

The SPEAKER: I accept the point of order that it is debate, and I call to order the Deputy Premier and the member for Newland, and I warn the member for Newland.