The Liberal’s Treasury spokesman had botched his fraudulent land tax promise costing and had made an error of over 300 per cent, the Treasurer Michael Aird, revealed today.
Mr Aird said Peter Gutwein’s costing was out by more than $8 million.
“Mr Gutwein and Mr Hodgman say it would cost $2.5 million a year when it would actually cost the State Budget about $10.8 million every year.
“That’s an error of over 300 per cent.
“Over four years that’s an immediate budget black hole of $33 million.
“Mr Gutwein just does not have a clue what he is doing.”
Mr Aird said Mr Gutwein had gone to the Budget papers and just lifted the figures for land tax paid on properties valued at less than $65,000 and more than $25,000.
“That figure is $2.5 million.
“What he completely forgot was that changing the land tax threshold affects all the land tax bills on properties worth over $65,000 as well.
“If, as the Liberals suggest they are not making any other change to the existing land tax arrangements, there will be an adjustment of $220 to each and every other land tax bill.
“Regardless of whether a land tax bill is $500 or $25,000 there will be a reduction of $220.
“That would lead to an additional cost of $8.3 million each and every year.
“Mr Gutwein and the Liberals just do not understand the basics of how taxes are worked out.
“If they manage to undercost this one election promise to the tune of $8.3 million a year how can you trust anything they say or do?.
“Mr Gutwein is the most recent in a long line of failed Liberal Treasurers or Opposition Treasury spokespersons.
“When they were last in Government they resorted to raiding Trust Accounts and needing to sell the Hydro to try and dig them out of their Budget blackhole.
“When they were in Government before that they sent the state spiralling into debt as they borrowed money to fund recurrent services.
“We’ve had Mr Whiteley who presided over a $300 million blackhole in election promises funding and Mr Hodgman who, on the brink of the global financial crisis, proposed investing taxpayer funds on the stockmarket which could have lost up to $500 million.
“Now we have Mr Gutwein who:
- Is more interested in supporting private company directors than being properly accountable for taxpayers money;
- In August this year claimed Tasmania would lose revenue as a result of the major Grants Commission review when in fact the figures showed we’d be millions of dollars better off;
- In June this year misread Government Balance Sheet data by over a billion dollars;
- Is incapable of understanding economic data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and other economic commentators.
- Continually fails to understand that a budget is made-up of two sides – revenue and expenditure;
- Has been provided with five separate updates on the 2008-09 Budget position but is still incapable of understanding the explanations provided for changes in revenue and expenditure data.
- Is responsible for the most expensive range of completely unfunded Election Policies the Liberal Party has ever seen.
“The Liberal Party just does not understand basic accounting and financial matters,” Mr Aird said.
