PM Transcripts

HIGH COURT JUDGMENT ON STAMP DUTY
Extract from speech made by the Prime Minister, Mr-'
John Gorton, in the Boothby Electorate, South Australia
27 September 1969
( The Prime Minister handed over a cheque for $ 200, 000 as a Commonwealth
contribution to Adelaide's Festival Hall).
" Of course, this is not going to solve by any means the
problems that your Premier and all the other State Premiers have just
recently run into. You will recall, all of you, that a short time ago there
was a High Court Judgment which cast doubt on the legal validity of the
taxes which the States, all of them, were levying in the way of their own
taxation field of stamp duty. If this legal judgment I'm not quite sure
whether it will but if it does cast doubt and possibly make invalid this kind
of State taxation, then this is something which is going to affect the Budgets
of every State in Australia in greater or lesser degree, certainly the Budgets
of this State, and it is going to have a fundamental effect on the taxation
capacity of the States to raise the residual revenue they want.
I think your Premier and other Premiers would agree with
me that they are now facing, because of this uncertainty, a very grave
problem indeed. I would like to say to your Premier, who is going to meet
all the other Premiers tomorrow in Melbourne to discuss this matter, that
we do not think it just a matter which is a problem for the States. This is
a problem for the Commonwealth just as much as it is a problem for the
States, because it casts the whole relationship into the melting pot.
I don't know what the Conference of Premiers may decide
to do tomorrow. But I do know and I want to make this perfectly clear,
that we, as a Federal Government, realise that it is a problem extending
beyond the States. If possible and if we are asked, we would be prepared
to pass validating legislation to enable the States to continue to do what
they have been doing in the way of taxation, if they wish to do it, though we
do not know whether that validating legislation itself would in fact be
constitutional and would stand up to a challenge. But what we can do in order
to support the States in the problem they are now facing, we as a Commonwealth
Government will do. And if we cannot pass validating legislation because of
the Constitution this is not clear then we will certainly confer with all the
Premiers in order to ensure that their Budgets are not wrecked and that
some other way is found for providing the revenue they may lose as a result
of this Judgment in the High Court. This is of great significance to all of
us and this, I think, should be known and established."