Land Tax

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (14:41): My question is to the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. Does the minister unequivocally support the government's latest land tax reforms?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:41): I'm not sure if the member for Lee understands how cabinet works, but—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: I think the answer that he is going to get—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —to this line of questioning—

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan: No, we understand how the Liberal Party works.

The SPEAKER: Member for Lee!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: Obviously, the dream factory downstairs was just trying to find some filibuster for the second half hour of question time today. On this side of the house, we believe in structural tax reform. We believe that here is an opportunity to be able to improve investment in our state.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Giles can leave for the remainder of question time. He has been doing it all day.

The honourable member for Giles having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: It does seem that there is some confusion in some quarters of this chamber as to what this tax is going to do. Overall, this will deliver $70 million worth of land tax cuts into the South Australian economy. Of course I support that. Again, there are those who do not understand that sometimes a tax reform package is more complicated than one moving part. When it comes to complexity in tax, we need to deal with all the facts and we need to deal with a package of measures, rather than cherrypicking the things that you like that support your argument. You need to look at this tax package in its entirety.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Leader!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: But what I have not heard from anybody yet is a cogent argument as to why properties should be allowed to disaggregate. When it comes to payroll tax, we do not allow it and the former government did not allow it. Businesses of like directorship and ownership should be aggregated for the purposes of payroll tax and can I tell you that that legislation is watertight.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: In relation to land tax, nobody has made a cogent argument about why there should be a two-step system, one that provides advantage to a certain set of people who structure their operations in a certain way and a disadvantage to other people who cannot take advantage of that structure. As somebody who deals every day with the property sector, I have spoken to a number of people, especially large and institutional investors, who will for the first time be able to compete when buying property in our state—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —and actually be able to buy property in our state because they are not faced with the prospect of having to compete with people who are able to structure their tax operations differently.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader! The member for Kaurna is warned.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: This will drive investment to South Australia. This is a brilliant set of tax reforms taken in their entirety, which is the way you need to look at tax reform, rather than just cherrypicking the bits—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —that you want to talk about and forgetting about the bits that you don't want to talk about.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader is warned.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: The idea here is that we are increasing the threshold, which is point number one. Point No. 2 is that we are aggregating.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: We haven't hidden that fact from anybody. No. 3 is that we are bringing down the top marginal tax rate. So do I support this measure? You bet I do and you bet the entire cabinet does. This is something that is going to drive jobs growth in South Australia and the opposition should either get onboard or get out of the way.