House debates

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009

Consideration in Detail

5:18 pm

Photo of Lindsay TannerLindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

There has been a long-standing debate about this question within the relevant government department. What has happened historically is that the additional revenue that does arise from an increase in migration as a result of increased taxation has been factored into budget estimates because, by definition, it ends up in the totality of estimates about taxation revenue, but it has not been specifically identified. So the only thing that is changing in this instance is that the additional revenue that is expected to flow from a given increase in migration is factored in, as has historically been the case with additional expenditure, because by definition an increase in migration produces both increased spending requirements in Centrelink and various other government programs and also increased tax revenue.

What has previously been the case is that there has been a specific identification of the increased spending obligations that flow but not a specific identification of increased tax revenue. Even though the increased tax revenue was in effect built into the overall estimate of taxation revenue for the government, it was not specifically identified in the measure. All that has changed is that now both sides of the impact of the measure are reported in the measure in the budget.

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