LAND TAX

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS (15:10): As a supplementary question, can you bank the increased capital value of a property? Do you know?

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Small Business) (15:10): If you have capital decline, what we have seen with many commercial property companies around this country and overseas is that they have gone broke.

An honourable member: We're talking about working people in South Australia; hard-working business people.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: Hard-working business people. It will be interesting to see whether members opposite have something to say about some of the quite outrageous payments that some of the corporate chiefs in this country have been getting. Are they happy with the sort of returns that—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: Do they believe that it is acceptable that, at a time when the economy is declining, people like Sol Trujillo, and others, are about to leave after four years with a $20 million-plus payout? The fact is that we are moving into difficult financial times. Companies will be under pressure. Land tax is just one part—and a relatively small one, I would suggest—of the pressures faced by companies.

Why is it that members opposite are always suggesting that the first thing that has to go is people? Where we have examples of corporations under pressure, have their directors taken a commensurate reduction in their payments? I suspect not.

When you are in difficult economic times, there will be many cost pressures on companies, but the solution should not always be to sack workers. Nor should the solution be to blame one relatively small part of the taxation that is applied; especially when the members doing it are members of the only party which, in the past 20 years, has actually increased land tax rates.

An honourable member: You don't believe that.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: I do believe it; it's true.