Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

She pales into insignificance compared to you, Mr Speaker. But a new tax on infrastructure in this country will be an obvious disincentive to investment. And here we are in the ACT, where a new tax is now being proposed on all infrastructure for all utilities including broadband. So we have the Labor Party federally saying they want more investment in broadband, whilst it is Labor policy to tax that new investment if it goes in. And this of course is brought to you by the Stanhopeless government here in the ACT.

It is estimated that this new tax on infrastructure will add about $137 a year to consumer bills. I asked the federal Labor Party to dissociate themselves from this tax yesterday and the Canberra Times duly went to the member for Lilley and asked him to condemn this tax. And, according to the Canberra Times, Mr Swan said he had not seen the proposals and would have to have a look at them. Just so he can have a look at them, I table the letter from all of the telecommunications providers in the ACT to the Stanhope government protesting about this new tax. I also table the letter from Jon Stanhope of 23 November 2006 in which he defends his new tax on infrastructure. He says this: ‘Importantly, having taken into account all of the factors ...’, he is going to proceed. He says, ‘Indeed, the government has been very open in acknowledging that there will be some impact on ACT consumers as a result.’ In other words, he expects this new tax to be fully passed on to consumers.

So here we have federal Labor feigning concern about a rise in the consumer price index while state Labor introduce new taxes to be passed directly into the consumer price index. Here we have—

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