Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

The tax inquiry announced yesterday by the perpetual bridesmaid Peter Costello has got to be one of the best cases of bridal envy I have seen since Muriel’s Wedding. The Treasurer, after 10 long years in the job, was prancing around last week saying and doing anything to make sure that he is not overshadowed or forgotten in the Howard nostalgia week. So desperately worried is he in this week when every media outlet is talking with sycophantic rapture about Howard’s 10 years in office that people will somehow forget about poor old Pete, he is out there trying on multiple wedding dresses. One minute he is out there to shock with the plunging back and front wedding dress as he becomes a commentator about what is wrong with multiculturalism. The next minute, he is the doyen of the Melbourne social set—the genial host Pete wearing the traditional silk and pearls with Melbourne’s glitterati on the banks of the Yarra. By Sunday he is frothy Pete, in the full meringue wedding dress mode—overblown, overdressed and out there desperately trying to snatch the bouquet off the Prime Minister, upstaging him with the tax inquiry.

The Treasurer has been in charge of the tax system for 10 years. He has had 10 years to genuinely reform it, and what does he do? He bags anyone who has any ideas—and that is just his own colleagues—and then announces an inquiry—an inquiry into what he has failed to do! The people in my district do not need an inquiry to tell them that this is the highest taxing government in our history. They know it every time they go to buy shoes for their kids, get the washing machine fixed, pay their electricity bill or go to the doctor. This government is now taking $100 billion more out of the pockets of ordinary Australians compared to 10 years ago. What we have seen so far from the Treasurer is an increasing tax burden on middle-income earners. Taxes for that group have increased substantially since this Treasurer was elected in 1996. Households are on average paying $10,000 more in tax than they were paying in 1996.

This government could not care less about families on middle incomes. It failed in the last budget to give them meaningful tax cuts and now, instead of genuinely looking at reform of the tax system, the Treasurer has set up an inquiry with a Liberal Party flunkey in charge to push the interests of big business. He has put Peter Hendy, former adviser to Peter Reith, of the waterfront dispute, dogs and balaclava fame, in charge of this inquiry. Peter Hendy, as a former Liberal party staffer—and not just any staffer; he is a very loyal Liberal Party staffer—is now Peter Costello’s No. 1 man on tax. Peter Hendy is not an independent business commentator. He is not even a tax expert. He is a Liberal Party flunkey. Having served the government well on the waterfront dispute, Peter Hendy went on to further distinguish himself by being one of the people at the centre of the children overboard scandal.

The Liberal Party created Peter Hendy. The Liberal Party looks after Peter Hendy, and Peter Hendy looks after the Liberal Party—he looks after the Liberal Party very well indeed. As the CEO of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, he has represented the big end of town, consistently lobbying for tax cuts for wealthy Australians with no regard to middle- and low-income Australians. ACCI’s recent submissions on taxation clearly show this bias. He is not an independent expert commentator; he is beholden to the Liberal Party and he is at one with the Liberal Party. He has of recent times become an avid third-party commentator and an endorser of all things Liberal, slavering over the government’s workplace relations agenda and failing in opinion pieces in newspapers to disclose his Liberal Party background and continued connections. Peter Hendy is no more an independent commentator on taxation matters than the Treasurer is on John Howard’s retirement.

If the government were genuine about tax reform, it would be involving a far broader cross-section of the Australian community in this inquiry, including people from small business who have been struggling under the burden of this government’s last set of reforms, church and welfare groups whose emergency relief budgets are stretched to breaking point as they try to help the working poor, academics who have been doing comparative analyses of Australia’s tax system for over 20 years—people who might actually know something. By rolling out one of his Liberal mates, someone who blindly pursued tax cuts for the top end of town, the Treasurer has shown nothing but contempt for Middle Australia. He has shown that this inquiry is all show and very little about reform. Australian families have had to wait 10 years for the Treasurer to wake up to fact that we need tax reform, and what have they got? An inquiry. Rather than preparing the way for his leadership aspirations, the Treasurer should be preparing our economy for the challenges and opportunities ahead and introducing real tax reform. Instead, the perpetual bridesmaid has given us an inquiry with a predetermined outcome headed up by a Liberal Party flunkey.

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