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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-06-06 Daily Xml
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POLICE (GST EXEMPTION) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

Received from the House of Assembly and read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for State/Local Government Relations) (16:17): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading explanation inserted in Hansard without my reading it.

Leave granted.

South Australia Police (SAPOL) currently provides a number of services to the public for which it charges fees. Some of these charges are imposed in accordance with legislation (for example, the impounding or clamping of vehicles; the issue of firearms licences) and some are provided under individual contract (for example, police escorts of over dimensional vehicles; police aircraft hire). However, there are some services that police carry out that are under neither the authority of any legislation nor specific contract. These relate solely to requests from the public for access to information from certain police records, namely, national police certificates, fingerprint reports, fingerprint and history checks, police incident reports, vehicle reports, antecedent reports and apprehension reports.

Amendments were recently made by the Commonwealth Government to the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (Cth). The amendments state in part that a fee charged by a Government agency to supply information that is not required to be provided under an Australian law will be subject to GST. These Commonwealth amendments will come into operation on 1 July 2013. As the aforementioned requests for access to SAPOL records are not subject to any legislation, they will be liable to GST payments from that date, unless they can be brought under South Australian law in the meantime.

As the South Australian Government does not want the public to have to pay GST on these particular fees, this Bill seeks a necessary amendment to the regulation making power in the Police Act 1998. The amendment will provide authority for regulations to be made as soon as practicable after the enactment of this Bill specifying that particular services and respective fees may be charged by SAPOL. This will formally bring the imposition of such fees (being fees for the provision of information that is of a regulatory nature by a government agency) under the authority of South Australian legislation thereby allowing the payment of such fees to continue to be GST exempt under the Commonwealth Act.

I commend the Bill to Members.

Explanation of Clauses

Part 1—Preliminary

1—Short title

2—Amendment provisions

These clauses are formal. There being no provision included in this measure, it will come into operation on the day on which, once enacted, it is assented to by or on behalf of the Governor.

Part 2—Amendment of Police Act 1998

3—Amendment of section 76—Regulations

It is proposed to amend section 76 of the Act to include a new paragraph that will enable regulations to be made to fix fees and provide for the payment, recovery, refund, waiver or reduction of such fees.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M.A. Lensink.

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