Wednesday, 30 August 2023

Payroll tax

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (18:01): (440) My adjournment matter this evening is for the attention of the Treasurer. Today the Liberals and the Nationals held a GP summit after concerns had been raised with us over many, many months. In fact for 18 months this issue has been bubbling along about a payroll tax being applied to GP clinics, and of course it is Victorian patients who are the big losers out of this. They are suffering.

Evan Mulholland interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: There were, Mr Mulholland, lots of doctors from your area who actually had some very terrifying statistics and spoke about the situation as it is. We all know Victoria is broke. The Moody’s report yesterday to say that our debt is going up to $220-odd billion is terrifying, and of course this government is grabbing money from wherever it can, but it is short-sighted, and I am absolutely astounded with the minister’s absolutely appalling and reckless comments in the house today about this issue, saying, ‘Nothing’s changed.’ That is what the government keeps saying, ‘Nothing’s changed,’ and she keeps saying:

We have met with the RACGP, we have met with the AMA and we have met with other representatives, and we continue to be open to meet with them. In fact I meet with them regularly.

Well, if that is the case you would have taken notice of the many instances when they have raised this issue. In a letter to the Minister for Health, the Treasurer and the Premier on 27 January from the Australian GP Alliance, AMA and Royal Australian College of General Practitioners it is very clear:

General practices already pay payroll tax on other members of the general practice team and administrative staff. Extending that tax to include the tenant GPs who deliver Medicare-funded clinical services will further contribute to the Victorian GP crisis by adversely affecting the fiscal viability of these clinics.

I know that those opposite in the government do not have any understanding of small business because they all come out of the unions. They are all union hacks. They do not understand what it is like to operate an individual small business like many of these GP clinics, who do an enormous amount for our community. Even the ATO understood that these tenants are independent contractors. They manage themselves – their holidays, their annual leave and what they do – they are not employees and yet the Treasurer and others are having this shocking tax grab on health services. It is purely that – it is a health tax – and it is Victorian patients that are going to lose out. Hundreds of thousands of services will be lost out because of this tax grab when clinics close their doors and bulk-billing ceases.

So the action I seek is: what advice has the Treasurer given to the State Revenue Office for increased activity or increased auditing of GPs and other allied health professionals like dentists, physios and chiropractors? And we want to understand: what did the Premier tell the SRO to do to get a greater tax grab, which is going to have a massive impact on our health services?