PETER CAVE: She spoke to our reporter Stephen Dziedzic.
WONG: We think it's very important we have this Tax Forum to have a proper discussion about the way forward on tax reform. How can we ensure that our tax system continues to support growth, continues to support participation, but also ensures a stable revenue stream in the years ahead?
DZIEDZIC: You've essentially warned that we're going to have to come to terms with the fact that we're going to have to actually increase taxes over the long-term. Why is that?
WONG: That's actually not what I said. What I pointed out was that with the ageing of the population, with the increasing and legitimate demands for health services, for aged care, that we do have spending pressures in the years ahead.
There are a range of ways we can deal with them. Obviously what we do need to do is make sure we continue to have an economy that's growing, that we increase our productivity and our participation.
DZIEDZIC: So it's not an inevitability then that our tax take per head is going to be higher in say 20 or 25 years?
WONG: No, what is an inevitability is that we will continue to need to fund good health, good education services for Australians and we will have a range of increasing demands and we need to think very carefully about how we're going to fund those.
DZIEDZIC: The Greens are saying that the Federal Government should include gold in its planned mining tax. Their argument is that the measure would actually add about $2 billion to the Commonwealth's coffers over 10 years or so. Is that something the Government's willing to consider or is this deal done and dusted?
WONG: This is an agreement that the Prime Minister entered into with the industry and we will be delivering that agreement. It's a very important reform because it is a reform which is all about ensuring we understand the needs of the patchwork economy and we build a stronger economy for the years ahead.
This is unlike the Opposition who actually stands for lower taxes for miners and higher taxes for small business and for manufacturing. It makes no economic sense at all.
DZIEDZIC: But what's the rationale for gold's exclusion?
WONG: As you know this tax went through a significant process of consultation. Obviously this is something we spent some time negotiating and the Government intends to honour its agreement with the industry to put in place a tax which remains opposed by the Opposition.
DZIEDZIC: You've also ruled out any substantial changes to the GST but the AIG and other business groups are saying that we should look at increasing the rate of the GST to try and pay for the removal of inefficient state taxes. Why is the Government keeping this off the table?
WONG: People are free to raise many things at the Tax Forum and I'm sure they will, but we have said we won't be increasing the rate nor the base of the GST. And there's a very simple reason for that - we don't believe that sending the bill to Australian households, to Australian consumers, for tax reform is the answer to the question.
DZIEDZIC: But if we can take the burden of extra state taxes, many of which as the AIG have pointed out aren't managed effectively, off businesses won't those benefits eventually trickle through to consumers anyway?
WONG: We would encourage state governments to continue to reform some of their inefficient taxes.
DZIEDZIC: And how about alcohol? You've got doctors' groups this morning in Parliament House - they're saying that you need to look at the way that you're taxing wine and at the moment it isn't taxed enough. Is that something the Government's willing to look at next week?
WONG: Can I say on alcohol: this Government's got a very strong record of reform in the area of managing alcohol abuse and lessening alcohol abuse in Australia, both through the tax system but also health policy.
But when it comes to tax what we would say is we are seeing a very significant restructure in the wine industry at the moment. We don't believe this is the time to be looking to additional changes of taxation regime.
CAVE: Finance Minister Penny Wong speaking to our reporter Stephen Dziedzic.
ENDS