AUSTRALIAN POLITICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3276, 27 December 1916, Page 21

AUSTRALIAN POLITICS.

The Government has amended the Entertainment Taxation Bill, deleting the tax on 6d tickets. The Daylight Saving Bill passed all its stages. The date of the periodical termination of the change in time was altered to tho last Sunday in September. Senator Bakhap gave notice to introduce a motion in the Federal Senate for the establishment of a professional army for Australia after the war, of not fewer than 15,000 men, to be recruited from veterans of tho Expeditionary Forces. The Federal Senate has passed the Daylight Saving, Entertainment Tax, and Unlawful Associations Bills. A proclamation authorises the operation of daylight saving as from January 1, 1917. The clocks will be advanced one hour from 2 a.m. on January 1 until the same hour on the last Sunday in March, when they will be put back until tho end of September. Tho Senate has again placed the Government in an awkward position by rejecting that part of the taxation proposals reducing the exemptions on middle-class incomes. Before adjourning till February the House of Representatives accepted the Senate's amendment of tho Incomo Tax Bill, considerably reducing the tax on incomes botween £2OO and £7OO. The revenue will lose £50,000 thereby. In the Federal House of Representatives Mr Poynton moved to impose a 25 per cent, increaso in the present income tax. The Treasurer submitted a new tax, which he stated would in many instances more likely mean an increase of 100 per cent, than 25 per cent., to operate as from July last. The Bill passed all its stages. Tho entertainments tax will operate on January 1, when a penny stamp must bo affixed to shilling tickets and a halfpenny stamp for each additional sixpence. The new loan investments will bo exempted from tho wealth tax.