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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-09-24 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Land Tax

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (15:10): I am not too sure if in recent history we have ever seen a Premier increasing taxes and talking about decreasing taxes at the same time to the extent that this Premier is. Make no mistake, and it is very important that those members opposite understand this: at some point in the not too distant future, this house will have an opportunity to vote on land tax 3.0, the third position that the government has had on land tax in approximately 12 months.

The bill that will come before this house will unequivocally do one thing above all else—that is, increase the revenue to government in the form of land tax; vis-a-vis, it amounts to a land tax increase, not a land tax decrease. If anyone wants any further evidence of that, they need only look at the remarks of the Treasurer himself, who articulated last week that if his bill does not succeed he will be seeking to implement alternative raising of revenue, i.e. either tax increases or implementing other harsh cuts on the people of South Australia.

Why on earth would the Treasurer be postulating the option of increasing taxes or cutting expenditure if indeed this bill were about cutting revenue to the state rather than increasing it? There is only one possible answer: we have a Premier who is asleep at the wheel and starting to believe his own bull. He is starting to actually believe himself that this is indeed a tax cut rather than a tax increase.

We heard the Premier repeatedly refer today to the 92 per cent. I ask one simple question: where are they? I would invite the members opposite to think to themselves, 'Where are these 92 per cent?' because they are certainly not making representations at any number of opportunities they have had available to them. The member for Adelaide baulked at the opportunity to answer a question to her today about the feedback that she heard at her forum. I can say with a pretty high degree of confidence that the 92 per cent that support this were not at that forum. They were not at our forum last night in the seat of Hartley, Mr Speaker, I can assure you of that. None of the 92 per cent were there.

How about in regard to the various business organisations that have otherwise previously associated themselves with those members opposite? Does the UDIA support this reform? No. Business SA? No. Maybe the Master Builders Association? Surely they have their ear to the ground and are hearing from all the 92 per cent? No, not them either, nor the Property Council, nor indeed the Motor Trade Association, whose members I had the pleasure of spending some time with this morning.

If 92 per cent of South Australians are set to be better off from this reform, I would have expected that after two weeks of having the opportunity to consume the information from the government they would be beating down my door, saying to the opposition, 'Please, can you vote for the government's bill? We understand that you are going through a thorough process, examining the options before you and contemplating what is in the best interest of the state, as a good opposition should.'

I would have anticipated by now that at least one of those 92 per cent would have made such representations to my office. Not one. Not since the announcement of this bill have we had representation from one person affected by this bill, coming to us and saying, 'Please, vote in favour of it.' Instead, we have had industry association after industry association, small business representative after small business representative, and individual mum-and-dad investor after individual mum-and-dad investor coming to our forums and coming to our offices begging and pleading that the opposition oppose this bill.

That begs the question: if this 92 per cent of people exists, why are they not showing up? Why are they not voicing their passionate support for this bill? Our contention is that they clearly do not exist. If they did, we would have the government rushing out and releasing the modelling that underpins their numbers, but they do not. We have asked repeatedly: can the Premier or the Treasurer release the modelling that demonstrates the 92 per cent? They have steadfastly refused, just as the member for Adelaide steadfastly refused scrutiny of her forum and just as the member for Adelaide and the member for King and the member for Hartley steadfastly refused to lift their eyes and start hearing from South Australians directly that this 92 per cent is clearly a fastball number.

Instead, most South Australians are genuinely concerned about the prospect of the implementation of this proposal. This opposition will continue its hard work engaging with South Australians and hearing from the small business community to ensure that the decision we arrive at is the right one for the people of this state.

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