Mr KELVIN THOMSON (12:42 PM) —What an absolute shambles this government's implementation of the goods and services tax is in, and what a mockery of parliamentary process we are witnessing today! In the first place we have the government proposing more than 100 new amendments to the GST—145 amendments over the course of 11 schedules, on a major change to the taxation system scheduled to come in on 1 July. But I will return to that.

Today we had the government come in here and gag debate on this Indirect Tax Legislation Amendment Bill 2000, moving `that the question be put' after just one opposition speaker, in an absolute travesty of proper parliamentary process and not giving this parliament the opportunity to consider this legislation in the detail it requires. Not content with that, they walk in here and hit us with a further 66 amendments during the committee stage of this legislation. They are being circulated now. What consultation with the community? What opportunity for proper parliamentary scrutiny? What consultation with the electorate? It is simply treating the rest of us with contempt, hitting us with amendment after amendment after amendment.

Let me refer to the Treasurer's declaration earlier this year that no more amendments would be needed to the legislation. We have in fact seen over 1,000 amendments—I think 1,026—to the goods and services tax legislation which was carried last year, and hundreds of other amendments to other new tax system legislation relating to the Australian business number and pay-as-you-go. For the government to come before us now with 145 amendments to its original legislation and 66 amendments being circulated is a contempt on the parliament. It is treating both the opposition and the wider community with contempt, and it just indicates what a complete shambles the implementation of the GST has turned out to be.

Frankly, I can do nothing more damaging to the government concerning this legislation than to go through it, and I intend to because it shows only too clearly what an impossibly complex tax system they are foisting on us and how absolutely impossible it is for small business and those who have to deal with the introduction of this system to cope with this procession of amendment after amendment after amendment. So let me turn to each of those schedules.

Mr Brough —This is the one you are keeping, isn't it? Just correct me if I am wrong, but this is the one you are keeping.

Mr KELVIN THOMSON —The member for Longman talks about keeping legislation. This government has sent—

Mr Brough —Are you going to keep the GST or not? Are you keeping the GST, Kelvin?

Mr KELVIN THOMSON —I am responding to the member's interjection and he might allow me to do so. This government has sent small business through the flames of implementation of a new GST with a costly compliance burden. For that, small business will not thank this government, and this government will get an appropriate reward at the next election. But small business does not say to us, `We want you to send us back through the flames the other way,' now that they have gone through the kind of compliance burden you foisted on them. So that is the situation. Let me turn to this legislation and the schedules in it.

Schedule 1 contains amendments to provide charities with the choice to treat certain fundraising events as input taxed; to enable certain non-profit bodies to lodge GST returns quarterly, regardless of the date on which they balance their accounts; to allow charities to claim input tax credits when reimbursing volunteers for expenses they incur for their charitable activities; and to ensure that a non-profit subentity can be a member of a GST group. Schedule 2 amends the GST to make the lease or hire of education goods GST free, to expand sewerage services to include like services, to ensure that short-term leases of farm land are GST free when they are akin to long-term leases, and to ensure that certain medical services such as medical reports are GST free.

Schedule 3 amends the GST act in relation to certain supplies made by non-residents. It also amends the provisions related to certain services provided to non-residents. (Extension of time granted) Schedule 4 amends the GST act and contains one consequential amendment to another piece of legislation. Most of those amendments are of a technical nature. They allow entities involved in transactions on the basis of principal and agent to enter into arrangements that simplify the way they account for GST on supplies and acquisitions and to grant the commissioner a discretion to apply these arrangements to certain industries subject to an `opting out' provision.

Schedule 5 enables registered businesses to claim input tax credits for borrowing related expenses unless the borrowing relates to making other input taxed supplies. It changes the de minimis test so that a registered entity can obtain input tax credits for acquisitions that relate to making financial supplies if the total amount of the credits that would be denied does not exceed $50,000 or 10 per cent of the total input tax credits of the entity. It excludes borrowing related expenses from the de minimis test and it clarifies that an entity is not entitled to both a reduced input tax credit and an input tax credit for the same acquisition. Schedule 6 contains amendments to provide rounding rules for GST liability, to allow the commissioner to determine a transitional rounding rule for entities and to allow the net amount for a tax period to be worked out from a method provided in a GST return.

Schedule 7 contains amendments to enable entities other than companies to be part of a GST joint venture, to provide that the joint venture operator may choose to prepare a single GST return on behalf of all the joint ventures for which it is responsible, to insert a definition of `minerals' in the dictionary in the GST act, and to clarify that a joint venture that does not involve the establishment of a joint venture entity is not a company or any other entity for taxation purposes. Schedule 8 includes amendments to ensure that the insurance of certain domestic components of international transport is GST free, to allow the notification of extent of input tax credit entitlement for a policy to be made at any time at or before a relevant insurance claim is made, to correct the calculation of decreasing adjustment on settlement, to ensure that the correct entitlement to input tax credits is taken into account in calculating the decreasing adjustment for claims under statutory compensation schemes where the premium an entity was liable to pay has not been paid, and to provide that tax invoices do not have to be issued in relation to compulsory third party schemes to which section 23 of the goods and services tax transition act applies.

Schedule 9 amends the law to allow credits of representative members of GST groups to be offset against debts of other members of the group, to clarify that a GST credit entitlement arises upon notification of the credit in the GST return, to allow interest to be paid to entities where an amendment of an assessment gives rise to a refund of GST, and to make consequential amendments to GST provisions as a result of the introduction of the new uniform penalty regime in the A New Tax System (Tax Administration) Bill (No. 2) 2000. Schedule 10 deals with alcoholic beverages. The stockpiling of alcoholic beverages could provide an unintended tax windfall to certain entities and at the same time distort the normal manufacturing schedules. The amendment will impose a sales tax liability on certain alcoholic beverages which are held sales tax free but excise paid at 30 June. Amendments in schedule 11 relate to the sale of livestock and the supplies of existing housing stock and alters the requirement to issue adjustment notes to limit that requirement in relation to small value adjustments. It contains many more amendments which I do not really have time to go through.

The whole point is: this is not part of some opposition scare campaign in relation to the GST. This is the legislation before this parliament for a tax system that the Treasurer said he was going to make simpler but in fact he has complicated beyond measure. This is the sort of legislation that small business, accountants and tax practitioners are being expected to deal with just weeks before the GST comes into operation. This government has botched the implementation of the GST, and the Treasurer, as I have said in the House before, has done for the cause of tax reform what Mike Tyson did for the gentle art of dating. It is a disgrace that we are called before the parliament to deal with these amendments without the opportunity to consider them properly as a parliament should be able to do.