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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-09-23 Daily Xml
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Land Tax

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (14:53): Given that my question was: what is the provision for loss of land tax, is the Treasurer saying that, when stamp duty on commercial real property transactions is removed and when people then find it relatively cheap to ungroup their properties and reduce their land tax bill—

The SPEAKER: Is this an explanation of a question?

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Is he therefore saying that he thinks the provision is minimal?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, Minister for Small Business) (14:53): The intent of the government's tax changes, which the opposition ridiculed and then called on us to bring forward, were to try to encourage more transactions in this area. We believe that transactional taxes are an inhibitor to economic activity. We believe that we want to see more people transacting. Indeed, what we would like to see is more interstate investment in South Australia.

It is my belief and Treasury's belief that there will be almost no impact on land tax receipts at all. We, in fact, believe that our land tax receipts will grow year on year out throughout the forward estimates, and, of course, they are published. The member for Stuart should know that but obviously doesn't, and he is evolving his questions as he is hearing the explanations because he got it so horribly wrong in the first question.

Mr van Holst Pellekaan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Stuart is warned for the second and final time.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Don't worry, it'll be over soon. I feel for the member for Stuart, and I almost feel his pain because I want him to do so well, but I'm really, really concerned.

I want to see more transactions; I want to see more ownerships in this state; I want to see us getting our per capita share of national investments into South Australia into property. I know that members opposite ridiculed these tax changes before they called on us to accelerate them to accelerate jobs' growth, despite them saying on budget day that this will create not a single extra job. That is the logic we have to deal with from members opposite.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: A member has just interjected that these tax changes do not take place for another three years. That's wrong again. The truth is that, on budget day, non-real property transactional taxes were abolished immediately, as were all transactional taxes on all statutory licences, on goodwill, on IP and on plant and equipment—abolished on day one. Within 12 months of that budget will be the first tranche of further tax cuts in conveyance duty. So the opposition saying that it will not happen for three years is fundamentally a lie.

The SPEAKER: I would ask the Treasurer in the interests of harmony to withdraw the expression 'a lie'.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Sir, I am oil on top of waters. I withdraw 'lie' and replace it with 'a blatant falsehood'.

The SPEAKER: The members for Chaffey, Morialta and Mitchell are called to order, and the member for Morialta is warned for the first time.

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Chaffey is warned for the first time. The member for Mitchell.

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