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Tax moves 'too
little, too late'
By TERESA MANNIX
The Government's moves
against tax avoidcrs and evaders
were "much too little ... far too
late", the Leader of the Opposi
tion, Mr Hayden, said last night.
Replying to an address to the
nation by the Prime Minister, Mr
Fraser, on Tuesday night, he said
the tax cheats had made million
aires of themselves at the expense
of the average taxpayer.
If Mr Fraser had been more
alert to the problem, Australia
would not be in this position and
"his party would not be in open
revolt across Australia".
While Mr Hayden was giving
his address, the Treasurer, Mr
Howard, was on his way to
Western Australia to talk to the
business community.
The Western Australian
branch of the Liberal Party is the
State branch most strongly op
posed to retrospective tax legisla
tion. Mr Howard is expected to
have talks with the State presi
dent, Mr Ian Warner, on the
subject today.
Mr Hayden said the average
taxpayer had been forced to sub
sidise "greedy millionaires".
"As your tax burden has in
creased under the Fraser Govern
ment, their's has almost van
ished," he said.
Tax evasion had "sky-rock
eted" under the present Govern
ment, and Mr Fraser had failed
to explain why he had delayed so
long in taking action.
in two months of asking ques
tions in Parliament, all the Op
position had managed to uncover
were "new revelations at the ex
tent to which very senior and
influential party members of the
Liberal Party are heavily in
volved in tax evasion".
"The Australian public is sick
and tired of paying the highest
taxes on record while wealthy tax
dodgers make millions out of tax
evasion," he said.
The Government's measures
would collect only one in every
five of the thousands of millions
of dollars lost in tax evasion.
There were many other tax
avoidance and -evasion practices
which had not been considered by
the Government. This made a
farce out of what Mr Fraser and
Mr Howard said they were trying
to do.
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