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

There is another element in the statement by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that warrants some examination too. That is the reference to ‘increase the tax base’. Increasing the tax base means one thing, which is that you start taxing things that currently are not taxed. That is what the former government did by introducing the GST. That is what ‘increase the tax base’ actually means. I note that the opposition, who are today making such an issue of deficits, are saying that their alternative strategy outlined this morning by the Leader of the Opposition involves a stimulus package of $15 billion minimum. When on radio today the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was asked, ‘If you were going to spend $15 billion in a recovery package, would that send the Australian economy into deficit?’ her answer was: ‘It would balance it in fact at this point.’ Not only has she not caught up with the $115 billion collapse in government revenues that the Prime Minister announced on Monday, but even if you measured this against the projections in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook paper published in mid-November you would see that this statement is 100 per cent wrong. She cannot even add up, because the stimulus package they propose would take the budget into deficit even without the recent updated analysis of the collapse in tax revenues.

The statements from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition lead to one of two conclusions: either the opposition has a strategy to impose new taxes, perhaps by broadening the GST and putting it back on food as it always wanted to do, or the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has absolutely no idea what she is talking about. Those are the two options. I concede that there is quite a bit of evidence to support the second hypothesis, but having been in this place for a while I am a bit of a cynical type and I am a bit more suspicious. I tend to believe that, in politics, where there is a little bit of smoke there is going to be fire.

I note with interest that in late January the Deputy Leader of the Opposition also said that one of the first things the opposition would do in response to the global financial crisis was revisit industrial relations laws. I wonder what that is a reference to? I believe in watching what people do in politics. What we have really seen hinted at by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, and walked away from to a degree for public presentation purposes by the Leader of the Opposition, is the real traditional Liberal Party strategy, which is tax cuts for the wealthy, an increase in the GST’s scope and bringing back Work Choices. That is the strategy of the opposition.

The government reject these approaches because we are investing in the long-term infrastructure needs of this nation. We are getting spending moving into the pockets of ordinary families to ensure that the retail sector and the ordinary small businesses of this country can continue to grow to sustain jobs and growth.

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