Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank my colleagues for their support and recognise the fact that they have come in at this late hour to listen to my address in relation to what should be a predictable topic, and that is Labor and rising taxes, rising debt and bigger deficits. When the minister at the table was still watching Romper Room a few years ago, I well recall the current Minister for Finance and Deregulation regaling the House about the need for inheritance taxes and capital gains taxes on the family home and the fact that there were distortions in the tax system that needed to be addressed. It is quite interesting that in question time yesterday and today, when the minister for finance was asked those questions, he seemed to forget his history. Of course, in those days he was Martha and today he is Arthur. He forgot the fact that he railed against the tax system that he saw giving preference to wealthy people. There is the same tax treatment of the family home today as there was in those days, and the minister for finance has now, if you believe his own words in this place, turned over a new leaf.

It is interesting to note, as we start to turn our attention to the reform of the taxation system, that it is undertaken by the people who so opposed taxation reform in the 1998 election and in 2000. As the member for Higgins knows all too well, the Labor Party fought root and branch against tax reform. Their biggest tax reform was to introduce a new tax on what they called ‘Toorak tractors’. I wonder if the people at the dispatch box were the architects of that brilliant policy in 1998. That was the extent of the Labor Party’s tax reform: a new tax on four-wheel drives. They railed against our root-and-branch redefining of the taxation system—a redefining that actually focused on building productivity, growing the Australian economy and setting down the foundations for the future.

Let me remind the House that they were very difficult reforms. They were hard reforms. Introducing a GST was something no government had previously been able to do, especially at an election. Everyone warned us about going to an election promising to introduce a goods and services tax. In fact, the Liberal and National parties had spectacularly failed in 1993 in that regard. But we had courage about making hard decisions on tax reform. As compensation for the introduction of a much-needed goods and services tax, we abolished bank account debit tax, bed tax, wholesale sales tax, financial institutions duty and the stamp duty on the transfer of shares. We gave Australia significant income tax cuts, and we delivered a significant increase in the pension. We did all of that in the face of strident, uncompromising opposition from the Labor Party. Regarding our reform of the taxation system, on 1 July 2000 the current Prime Minister claimed it was a day of—

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