AUSTRALIA—On the anniversary of its fourth birthday, the Australian Sex Party has proposed a $5 billion budget plan that does not include increasing taxes on working families and small businesses. Sex Party president and Victorian Senate candidate Fiona Patten says that Australia needs a new broom to sweep away decades of conditioned thinking on funding budgets, and that new streams of finance lay just beneath the surface of the nation’s economy like seams of gold.
Patten has called on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and opposition leader Tony Abbott to implement taxation and regulation of marijuana in Australia and said that later in the campaign she would reveal cost and revenue forecasts for a regulatory scheme that would raise over $2 billion a year in tax revenue.
“The U.S. states of Colorado and Washington have recently taxed and regulated marijuana to their great benefit,” she said, adding that Uruguay has also recognized the benefits of this scheme and has started the same process. “Colorado needed new streams of revenue and found them with creative thinking and by taking advantage of an activity that was already happening.”
Patten said she would also reveal details of a scheme to tax religious institutions in Australia that would net a bare minimum of $3 billion dollars in its first year, rising to $10 billion.
“A conservative estimate is that income tax exemptions alone to churches and religious organizations cost taxpayers nearly $20 billion a year. Add to that GST [goods and services tax] concessions, exemptions from capital gains tax (on property and share trading), the Fringe Benefits Tax Exemption, and the cost to tax payers is staggering.
“We need to do away with the old fashioned notion that religious businesses shouldn’t pay their fair share of taxation, just because they claim to be advancing the cause of religion,” she continued. “Religion is on the nose and being examined by a Royal Commission. People are asking how can institutions like this get away without paying tax like everyone else has to. This will be a popular tax.
“Following Treasurer Chris Bowen’s recent mini budget showing a deficit blowout of $30 billion,’ Patten concluded, “the Sex Party’s plan to bring that figure back by one sixth is a lot better than anything either of the major parties have proposed.”
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