Jamie Briggs MP

Jamie Briggs, Liberal Member for Mayo, good morning to you. 

 

Good morning, did he discover whether the chicken came before the egg though? 

 

I think he is working on that. That’s next year’s Nobel Prize. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Amanda Rishworth, Labor MP for Kingston, good morning Amanda. 

 

Good morning. 

 

Amanda, what is your theory on why the universe is expanding? 

 

Well I was hoping you wouldn’t ask me about dark matter because I would much prefer to talk about tax. 

 

You might say its Tony Abbott, is the dark matter. 

  

Yeah, he could be seen as the dark matter in the Parliament. But look to be honest, I am going to leave that to the Nobel Prize laureate actually. I think he is best qualified to...

 

Amanda, I think that is a great call. I think that is a great call. And leave it to me and David, we’re across it all, that’s fine. 

 

I think both of you, absolutely. 

 

Exactly. Now Amanda, this tax forum, I thought the whole idea of a tax forum is that we pay less tax; I haven’t heard the less tax mantra coming out. It all seems to be about new taxes, more taxes, higher taxes and shifting taxes. Is that a good thing?  

 

Well look I think there has been a lot of discussion. There has been discussion about the corporate brand of tax. There has been discussion about increasing even more than already has been proposed, the non-tax threshold that people before they actually pay tax. So there has been discussions as well as different types of ideas and new taxes, and you can see there has been actually a lot of debate, not just with government, but between community groups and between different groups of people. So I think there has been a pretty broad reaching debate of what potential taxes there could be, but also about tax cuts, but also, as you mentioned, actually streamlining taxes and looking at more efficient ways, and I think that personally I think there needs to be three principles and that includes efficiency, fairness and also increasing participation, and that is certainly been the view of the government. 

 

So increasing, that’s code for getting more tax from people, but maybe...

 

No, increasing participation is actually about looking at ways you can encourage people into work, so for example, increasing the tax free threshold, which we’ve proposed to do is tripling that actually encourages people to actually get into the workforce. 

 

Jamie Briggs, Liberal Member for Mayo, you’re interested in Jack Snelling’s comments yesterday, or lack of comment really about the South Australian government should look at getting rid of payroll tax in exchange for a push for more GST. 

 

I just thought Jack Snelling yesterday was appalling. I mean this guy is the new Treasurer. He has been in the job for a few months; I think it is a few months isn’t it? 

 

Yeah. 

 

And you know, there is no agenda at all. I mean he has got no idea at all about what he wants to do with the state, and the state needs some reform. I mean we can sit and continue and go along as we are and I think that would be a failure of his position. It strikes me as strange that a state Treasurer wouldn’t be arguing, when the Commonwealth Government is trying to put pressure on them to reduce ineffective taxes, the states do have a lot of ineffective taxes – stamp duty is probably the most ineffective of the lot – that they wouldn’t be arguing, or at least proposing that we look at extending the stretch of the GST. Let’s not forget the GST, in the first place, was meant to be applied to food and services, but part of the deal, because the Labor Party’s complete opposition to the GST, even when it got an electoral mandate, meant that a deal had to be done with the Democrats and excluded food and services. 

 

And would you like to unwind that? 

 

Well, look I think it has to be discussed, I mean if you are serious about having a tax forum.  Ken Henry said yesterday you could have written a script before this even began. You’ve got every player arguing someone else should be taxed more and they should be taxed less at this forum. It’s extremely predictable, there will be no outcome from it, one million dollars of taxpayers’ money being spent on it, and you’ve got a state Treasurer in South Australia who has got no ideas at all. He has got no ideas about the future of the state’s tax base, about streamlining taxes like payroll tax. Payroll tax is actually not a bad tax if it’s elegantly put in place. At the moment because you have got carve-outs and exemptions, it makes it, it’s an employment disincentive tax. 

 

I suppose the embargo on the GST or the GST free zone on fresh food was there for a very good reason.

 

It was there for political reasons to get it through the Senate, that’s what it was there for. 

 

Oh Jamie, common...

 

Well Amanda your party opposed it completely. Your party opposed it; it’s no surprise that you opposed the GST until your state Treasurer’s worked out that this was a great revenue source, because it is actually a very effective and efficient tax. I mean it is the most effective and efficient tax in the system. 

 

We’ve been quite clear that we don’t want to see an extension of the GST...

  

So why have a tax forum? 

 

Well the GST isn’t the only tax, Jamie. It might be in your mind the only tax, but there is a number of different things that can happen within a tax system and a lot of those have been discussed. But we’ve made it clear that we don’t believe that an increase in the GST is necessary. In fact, the states...

 

I didn’t say we should increase the GST, Amanda. Listen to what I said. 

 

Or increase what it is applied to either. We’ve said we don’t believe that there should be changes to the current operation of the GST, and we’ve been really clear that states have benefited in a doubling of GST over the last decade, they’ve doubled their revenue as a result of the GST and they’ve also, on top of that we have also been increasing our funding for specific areas including health and education. So we’ve said look these taxes are inefficient, and they should be looked at. 

 

Jamie Briggs, it is arguing for an increase in the GST is it not? It’s the same, I mean it is just a different form of words, but you’re extending the scope of it into an area where it doesn’t apply. 

 

Sure, and what you are doing at the same time is removing inefficient taxes and that economically will have a lot of benefit. Amanda talked about, I think was it Amanda, efficient and productive taxes at the start, well you will increase the productive capacity if you are not applying such unproductive taxes, and if you are collecting that revenue through a more efficient means. We all accept we have to collect tax, I mean no one likes it, but that is way the government operates, that’s the way we deliver services. 

 

What will the impact be in terms of revenue for imposing GST on food? 

 

Saul Eslake, who is a well respected economist, was suggesting it was about $5 billion per year. Now that can obviously remove $5 billion of very ineffective taxes throughout the system. I think Rob Oakeshott has been suggesting that 90% of the tax revenue in Australia is collected by 10 of the hundred or so taxes, I think that is out of the Henry Review. So there is a hundred odd taxes which are extremely ineffective and only collect 10% of the tax take. My point is that this tax forum is a joke because it won’t have a genuine outcome because they are not talking about the big taxes. 

 

Well, Amanda Rishworth, is there a point here that really this is a contractual obligation tax forum, because Rob Oakeshott wanted one, so you are ticking it off the list. Tony Windsor wants pre-commitments on pokies and that is something the ALP is working on and Rob Oakeshott wanted a tax forum, again you have to tick this off the list. 

 

Well look no one has been stopped to talk about anything and I think no one has had their microphone turned off or anything like that. But the government has clearly said that there are some principles that we believe that we will adhere to, and one of those is implementing the mining tax which is a big tax reform that does reduce company tax to allow our non-mining areas to remain competitive and to become more competitive in the global market. And we have also been clear that we don’t believe a GST or any increase or the broadening of the base of the GST. But there...

 

Yes, we need to move. 

 

...has been a lot of discussion being had and nothing has been taken off the table in terms of discussion. 

 

Amanda Rishworth, thank you. Labor MP for Kingston. Jamie Briggs, thank you. Liberal MP for Mayo.