Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. A small business in my electorate, Apex Smash Repairs, was flooded up to the ceiling. It lost vital equipment. It suffered damage of $200,000 and was out of business for two weeks. But, because the owners of the business did not suffer any flood damage to their family home, they are not exempt from the flood tax and they will have to pay. Prime Minister, will the government reconsider its flood tax to ensure that victims of the flood like the owners of Apex Smash Repairs are not made to suffer twice from this tragedy?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. Of course, a business in those circumstances is entitled to assistance through the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements I have just outlined for the damage to the business. It is able to access assistance through the natural disaster recovery arrangements, and we are, of course, more than happy to assist the member on the details of that. I have done my best to advise all members of the coalition with affected electorates about a particular email address they can contact us through to deal with constituent issues, and we can make sure that people get the right information. Of course, members of the government and members on the crossbenches are very welcome too to make inquiries through that email address.

On the question of payment of the levy, the exemptions for payment of the levy, because we are talking about personal income taxation, are being figured off the personal arrangements that we have under the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements—that is, eligibility for the emergency money under the Australian government disaster relief payment and associated payments. So the aim here in making those exemptions has been to exempt from paying the levy people who have been immediately impacted personally by natural disaster.

I would also indicate to the member that, as well as advising her constituents of the relief arrangements for them because of what has happened to their business, she may well want to talk to them about what they ordinarily expect to be their income, because I would remind her that overwhelmingly Australian taxpayers will be asked to pay less than one dollar a week under the levy, and around half of Australian taxpayers are exempt from it entirely because they earn less than $50,000 a year. So the design of this levy—and it does mirror in design some levy arrangements that have been used in the past in this country—is to calibrate the burden on upper income earners. That is absolutely appropriate. People who earn more should be asked to step forward and assist more, and under this levy they are.