Mr SLIPPER (11:55 AM) —It certainly will not come as any surprise to honourable members opposite that the government reject this amendment. We are not going to apologise for rejecting this amendment. We do, however, want to expose the absolute naked hypocrisy of the Labor Party in so far as the wholesale sales tax, supported by the honourable member for Rankin and others, does not have the amount of the tax built into the price and yet, despite the fact that they administered that particular tax—one of their favourite taxes which is levied at zero, 12, 22, 32, 41 and 45 per cent—at no time did they ask that the separate amount of the tax should be shown.

The amendment sought by the honourable member for Hotham is completely unnecessary. It would make the tax more complex and it would add to compliance costs. He knows that.

Mr Horne interjecting—

Mr SLIPPER —Why don't you just keep quiet? Why don't you try and be relevant? Why don't you in fact apologise to the Australian people for opposing the new tax system which the Australian people voted for at the last election?

Returning to the amendment, it is unnecessary because this is a simple tax, and in most cases under the goods and services tax the amount of tax included in the price of the purchase could be readily calculated as simply one-eleventh of the purchase price. This provides a level of transparency that has never been present under Labor's wholesale sales tax. Again I say that they charged zero, 12, 22, 41 and 45 per cent rates. They had this very complex tax and they did not at any time show consumers what they were charging. The goods and services tax in most cases will simply be one-eleventh of the purchase price. This provides a level of transparency that they have never been prepared to support for wholesale sales tax, the effect of which is differential and hidden and which has never been required to be displayed separately on invoices at the retail level.

Requiring businesses to itemise the amount of GST paid would lead to greater compliance costs for businesses by forcing them to increase unnecessarily the information contained in displayed prices and to adapt cash register equipment to print out three amounts for every item sold. Even if the proposed changes were to apply only to subtotals and not to each item, separate receipts would need to be issued for GST-free or input taxed items. So the Labor Party is hypocritical. The Labor Party administered the wholesale sales tax system for 13 years in government and did not ask that the wholesale sales tax be shown separately, yet they come into the chamber and effectively say that now that we have a new, simple GST coming in they want something quite different. In fact, the GST is simple because usually the GST can be calculated by taking one-eleventh of the price. The government, as I said at the outset, does indeed very strongly oppose the amendment moved by the honourable member for Hotham.