Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

It is good to know that the Treasurer has some acolytes. Perhaps the member for Dobell will be next with the elevator heels and the boilersuit, joining in the chorus, ‘The people are happy.’ No doubt they will all be there, with flip cards, in the stadium. ‘How do you feel about a higher tax on cars?’ the Treasurer and the member for Dobell will say. They will say, ‘We are happy in this fantasy.’ That is not Australia. It might be North Korea, or perhaps a new capital of a fantasy world inhabited by the government—‘Swan Yang’ perhaps, an extraordinary place. An air of unreality overwhelms this team opposite us.

The position with competition is that it delivers lowest prices. That is what competition does. We see that throughout all of our experience. This will reduce competition and it is part of an attitude, an approach—a culture, if you like—of this new government that is against free markets and against competition. Yesterday we heard the Prime Minister say how appalling it was that, at the moment, petrol prices could change during the day. Just think about that: it is ‘appalling that petrol prices could change during the day’. You have to go back to the Soviet Union, you have to go back to Gosplan and Brezhnev’s era, to think of governments which would actually want to set prices and say that price movements are wrong. What have these guys learned? Nothing. The reality is that our society is so much more prosperous today because of freer markets, because of competition and because of microeconomic reform. The Labor Party, when it was previously in government, made a contribution to that, and I did not deny it, but now it is rolling that back.

I have been very careful not to give the member for Dobell the news that he seeks too soon, because I want to keep him here. It is important that he listens to all of this. He is on the edge of his seat now. He wants to know what our attitude to this legislation is. Well, we think it is very bad legislation. We will not divide on these bills in the House; this will be carried on the voices, but we will ensure that the bills are referred to committee in the Senate, because we want to carefully investigate the implications of this new tax on the automobile industry generally and on the people that maintain, service and sell these cars. We want to see what its impact is going to be on other vehicles, vehicles less than $57,000 and second-hand vehicles. When we have completed that investigation, we will respond, and we may seek to amend or we may oppose, but we will let the government know what our attitude is then. We need to be fully informed—unlike the government, which is so uninformed about this. On the very day it is seeking to rush it through the House, the government is announcing that it is going to review the tax. It is saying: ‘Come on, come on, you have to pass this bill. Hurry up. It is really urgent. But don’t worry: we’re going to have a look at it and we might change it and do something completely different.’ How ridiculous—talk about needing to make your mind up! The government has not made its mind up. It is riven by indecision and confusion on the matter of tax.

In terms of the approach that an opposition takes to government’s revenue measures—and again I say this for the benefit of the member for Dobell, who has left his seat again, so he will not be able to distract you, Mr Deputy Speaker—we have regard to the fiscal consequences of every position we take. If we propose a tax be cut, if we propose new spending or if we propose a new tax not be imposed, we recognise that all of that has an impact on the budget. All of it does. We take into account the implications for the bottom line of the budget in our considerations. We cannot rewrite the budget. In opposition it is not our job to do that, and we do not have the access to the information or the means to do it. But we do have very careful regard to the fiscal implications, the impact on the surplus, of any courses of action that we recommend—be they reductions in tax or be they new taxes that we oppose. We take all that into account, and there may well be—and almost certainly will be—some measures which we will not oppose in either this House or the Senate because, on balance, we take the view that we do not want to recommend changes that would have a greater impact on the bottom line of the budget. All of that has to be taken into account. It is not just a question of the merit of particular measures within the fiscal envelope of the budget. We recognise there is an overall impact on the budget, and that is something that we plainly take into account.

In conclusion, this new tax is one to which the government is not fully committed. They have undermined this new measure by the announcement today that they are going to review it even before the bill has passed the House, let alone the Senate. They are clearly undecided, clearly uncertain and clearly confused about this, as they are about so many other areas of tax.

It is not a tax on the rich by any definition. It is a tax that will be paid by people, whatsoever their income may be, who choose to buy a vehicle, for whatever reason, over $57,000. We in Australia believe that people should be able to make choices, make the priorities they choose within their own resources. This tax reduces choice. It penalises people who make the choice to buy a vehicle over $57,000. It seeks in a clumsy and ham-fisted way to further the protectionist agenda of the government, the end of which, as the member for Batman knows better than most, can only be higher prices. This is a measure of a government only six months in office but already deeply confused and deeply divided on this vital issue of tax.

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