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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-10-31 Daily Xml
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General Practitioner Payroll Tax

Ms PRATT (Frome) (14:44): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Will the government scrap the GP payroll tax? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Ms PRATT: As part of the Queensland state election campaign, former Labor Premier Steven Miles committed to scrapping the GP payroll tax if re-elected. The LNP, who formed government in Queensland over the weekend, committed the same. GPs in Queensland will no longer be subject to the tax.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (14:44): I thank the member for her question. The good news is we have provided a substantial tax cut for GPs in the most recent budget. We have provided a payroll tax cut for every GP in South Australia who bulk-bills.

The latest data, I am advised, shows that 76 per cent of all GP consultations are bulk-billed—76 per cent. More than three-quarters of all GP consultations are bulk-billed. That means no out-of-pocket expense for patients.

For many years, including the four years that those opposite were on the Treasury benches, payroll tax was liable for all GP wages, subject to the taxable wage limits. We have changed that policy to cut payroll tax. I am pleased to say, in navigating this issue—

Mr Cowdrey: Who has been taking it from them for the first time?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: I am sorry, the former shadow treasurer, now shadow minister for environment, has something to say about this. Did you fail to prosecute the issue in your former role? Is that the issue?

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Yes, okay. Didn't even get the question.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Don't, he might quit preselection.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Yes, we wouldn't want to see that. Was that 11 o'clock before the 12 o'clock cut-off that you nominated? Were you really weighing it up that long? Did you leave it that late to weigh up whether to nominate again at the next election? Did you honestly wait until the last 60 minutes?

Mr Cowdrey: No, I didn't.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: That is extraordinary. To think that people on your side ring us up and tell us. It's amazing. That is amazing. Maybe somebody else is hanging around the parliament threatening your preselection as well.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: He's threatening himself.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: That's right. It's habitual. It happens every four years. The political Halley's Comet of tantrum throwing. It comes around every four years.

The SPEAKER: The member for Morialta, I again uphold your point of order without you needing to state what it is. The Treasurer will come back to the substance of the question.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Apologies for the digression. So we have cut payroll tax for GPs and are proud to continue our record of cutting taxes for South Australians. In bringing GPs into compliance with the longstanding provisions of payroll tax, we have ensured that South Australia is providing a more generous, more lenient regime than New South Wales, than Victoria, than the ACT, and that is an important distinction, that our arrangements here in South Australia are better than those in our immediately surrounding states.

I have been very pleased to do that, and I note the reports that I have received from people who have contacted me that they have gone and received a GP consultation that for the first time has been bulk-billed for them. If that is the case, that we are now seeing our tax cuts have a beneficial impact on patients who are now getting access to bulk-billed services, I think that is a really good thing for South Australians.

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