Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Dawson for his question. Today is the last day of the budget session, and it is therefore appropriate to take stock of the budget and, indeed, the opposition’s response to the budget. The budget had three central features: a $22-billion surplus designed to put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates; over $40 billion invested in three large funds for the investment in infrastructure that this country has lacked for so long and so desperately needs from its national government to increase our economic capacity; and a $55-billion package of initiatives for working people, including at the heart of those initiatives very substantial tax cuts.

The opposition response to the budget has consisted of a number of things. First, a complete and utter refusal to engage in debate about the macroeconomic settings in Australia—a complete refusal to indicate what level of surplus they believe is appropriate to fight inflation and to put downward pressure on interest rates and a complete refusal to engage in debate about investment in the nation’s long-term future through investment in infrastructure and skills. The second element of their response has been to take as many positions as possible on issues in order to avoid the responsibility and the scrutiny of having a single position and in order to cover up the fact that they are engaged in a life and death internal struggle over the leadership of the Liberal Party—not just between the member for Wentworth and the Leader of the Opposition but also with the member for Higgins lurking in the background, hoping against hope that the world economy will collapse, that circumstances will change and that the entire Australian nation will come begging at his door asking him to fulfil the mantle that has always been his by birthright. So the Leader of the Opposition not only has to deal with the member for Wentworth snapping at him day in, day out; he also has the member for Higgins waiting, hoping, that the world economy will collapse. The third element of their response has been to block and delay budget initiatives to undermine the government’s inflation-fighting settings and to undermine the government’s long-term investment in infrastructure and skills.

In fact, the opposition has just blocked another budget savings measure in the Senate—the measure to end tax deductibility for donations to political parties. We might ask why they have done this. We might ask: who benefits from this? Are these donations being made predominantly by low-income people? Are they being made by working people, by battling working families? I do not think so. They are being made by high-income earners—by the kind of people that we all know the Liberal Party truly represents. That is who they are being made by.

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