Mr CAMPBELL —My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister will recall saying on radio last week that Sri Lanka had tried a debit tax and had rejected it because it had not worked. Since this is clearly not true, and the Prime Minister was probably confusing it with Sri Lanka's turnover tax, which is much more like the government's proposed GST, I ask the Prime Minister: what is wrong with having your Treasury prepare a paper detailing the relative merits of the debit tax compared with a GST? Why won't you let the Australian people know the facts?

Mr HOWARD (Prime Minister) —I understand that some work has been done in relation to the pros and cons of the debit tax. It is my understanding that it is quite unworkable. It is my understanding that it would have a completely distorting effect on financial activity in this country. It would fall unevenly. It would pay no regard to the fact that some businesses are high turnover with low margin; other businesses are low turnover with high margin. The capacity to protect the poor and the capacity to avoid very adverse distributional effects would be quite significant. To cut a long story short, I think it is a thoroughly lousy idea. If there is any further information that I can get for the honourable member, I will do so, and I will be very happy to provide it in the spirit of wanting to make information available.

It is important that we have a moderate, sensible debate on this issue. The question is whether we have as a nation the maturity to pursue a dispassionate debate in order to achieve such overdue change. In that context, my attention has been drawn to a comment that was made about taxation reform at one stage in the debate in this country. The person in question made this observation:

I have no doubt, unless this climate is acted upon, tax reform will be thrown back into the too-hard basket for another 20 to 30 years at immense cost to the vast majority of Australians.

When that statement was made, I agreed with it very strongly and said so publicly, as, indeed, did the current Leader of the Opposition and Deputy Leader of the Opposition because that statement was made by the former Prime Minister, Mr Keating, when he was Treasurer in a speech he made to the Melbourne Age taxation symposium when he was correctly, in 1985—I think with some courage—advocating the cause of taxation reform. Those words would be well heeded by the Leader of the Opposition and by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition who, they well know, were two of the only three people in the Hawke cabinet who supported taxation reform.

It is a national interest issue. The more that those in the opposition seek to fan prejudice, the more that those in the opposition seek to get the screaming headline as distinct from the calm dispassionate debate, the more they are knifing the national interest.

Mr Martin Ferguson —You know all about prejudice. You don't even say sorry.

Mr SPEAKER —I warn the member for Batman.