FED: Howard ups pressure on Labor to pass GST

AAP General News (Australia)
04-01-1999
FED: Howard ups pressure on Labor to pass GST

CANBERRA, April 1 AAP - Prime Minister John Howard today upped pressure on Labor over the
GST, warning it would incur the nation's wrath by blocking tax bills which go before the
Senate later this month.

Mr Howard said the job of an opposition was also to propose alternatives.

"If an opposition spends all its time saying no, no, no, to everything the government does,
in the end the public will run out of patience," Mr Howard said on Adelaide radio.

"We are saying to the Labor Party you run the risk of incurring the scorn and the wrath of
the community, even though some of them may not have supported us and a lot of them didn't ...
they accept that we won the election."

Mr Howard said his government was being frustrated at every turn by Labor and the Democrats
in the Senate but there was growing acceptance the government had the right to pass measures
which were part of its election platform.

These included the GST tax package, the Telstra privatisation bill, the bid to keep junior
wage rates, and changes to unfair dismissal laws.

But urging the opposition and minor parties to stand firm, Australia's peak welfare body,
the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS), said up to two million people would be
worse off under the GST.

ACOSS president Michael Raper said an updated analysis of impact of the GST, requested by
the senate select committee investigating the tax, showed just how many low income earners
would be worse off, especially in the first year.

"What these figures show quite categorically is that between one million and two million
low income, most disadvantaged Australians will be worse off under the GST package," he
said.

Mr Raper said ACOSS' original analysis released earlier this year was misinterpreted by
Treasurer Peter Costello who said it showed no-one would be worse off under the GST.

He said that analysis was based on 1993 figures from the Melbourne Institute and also on
the third or subsequent years after a GST was introduced.

But the figures released today were modelled on 1999 data and showed the impact the tax
would have in the first year, with aged and disability pensioners, the unemployed and those on
social security benefits the hardest hit.

"It's time for the treasurer to stop playing games, to stop playing with these numbers. The
figures are irrefutable, they are categorical," he said.

AAP mb/sc/sco/br

KEYWORD: TAX NIGHTLEAD

1999 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.