Senator SHERRY (3:59 PM) —The bills we are debating today concern the goods and services tax. Of course, we all remember that the goods and services tax, introduced by the Liberal-National Party, was the tax we were never, ever going to have. Who can forget the famous words of the Prime Minister that `never ever'—and he repeated it a number of times—would this country have a goods and services tax. Of course, the goods and services tax is the tax that taxes just about everything.

As most people would be aware, the goods and services tax package passed the Senate some months ago. Those who are avidly listening to the broadcast might wonder why we are debating the issue yet again. The reason we are debating six bills concerned with the goods and services tax is that we are considering—here in the Senate, at this time of year and on our last day of sitting—more than 1,000 amendments to the goods and services tax legislation that we have already passed.

The amendments that we are considering in the Senate amend just about every aspect of the goods and services tax. This is from the Liberal-National Party coalition—supported by the Australian Democrats—who claimed that this was to simplify Australia's tax system. We passed the goods and services tax bills, and here we are, a few months later, putting forward hundreds of amendments to that package. Of course, there is one amendment that is missing in the package we are considering, and that is an amendment to remove the exemption from the goods and services tax from casino high rollers. The package we are considering reflects the policy of the Liberal-National parties. Regrettably, the GST bills were agreed to and passed this Senate through a deal with the Australian Democrats.

There have been a number of claims made about the goods and services tax. I do not wish to roll out all of the claims made by the Liberal-National parties, but a number of them include claims that it will create jobs, that it will tax the cash economy, that it will improve employment, that it will improve savings by taxing consumption, that it will remove a tax from exporters, and that the GST will simplify the tax system. That last claim is about the most fantastic claim of them all.

Time does not allow me to go into many of the claims made by the Liberal-National parties, but the issue I want to touch on today is this issue of simplification of the tax system and the related difficulties the GST will cause business. As I said earlier, the very fact that we are already considering more than 1,000 amendments to the goods and services tax package that was passed a few months ago is an indication that the GST is a far from simple tax. When considering the amendments, we need to understand that the GST is a tax at each level of production, distribution and sale of goods or services. A GST is levied on the value added at that level. The seller is liable for the whole GST to that point, less the tax already paid by the previous sellers. For this reason, its collection is particularly onerous.

To collect the GST is bureaucratic. It involves a great deal of paperwork. In particular, this places a significant burden on small business. Small business is one of the big losers with a GST because, as is well known, the GST will replace the wholesale sales tax. One of the virtues of the wholesale sales tax is its simplicity. It has only a small number of tax collection points.

Debate interrupted.