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

I withdraw, Mr Speaker. I will refer to him henceforth as my fourth shadow finance minister. Last night on Lateline Senator Joyce was asked how the coalition was going to pay for the spending that it just committed itself to with respect to climate change. His answer was that he could not say and had to wait until the Henry report on taxation emerged. That can only mean one thing because, by the time the election arrives, the government’s taxation decisions with respect to the Henry report will be in the bottom line. Whether they impact this year, next year or the following year, they will be in the bottom line. So any changes that Senator Joyce proposes to make with respect to taxation will be above and beyond that. Were such changes to reduce taxation, that would not be able to pay for the $3.2 billion, would it? In other words, there is only one logical outcome from Senator Joyce’s statement—that is, the opposition, if it is elected to government, is going to increase taxes in order to pay for its climate change policy.

Further, this morning on the radio program AM, when Senator Joyce was asked a similar question, ‘Can he guarantee there won’t be any tax increases?’ he responded, ‘That’s a very hard question to answer,’ and then said, ‘Wait for the Henry report.’ The truth is that the opposition’s climate change policy is simply a giant con job. It is straight out of the Howard songbook. It is pure John Howard: splash money around, set up a National Party slush fund, pretend you are doing something and meanwhile hope you can skate through. Those days are over. This government and this nation are committed to dealing with the serious challenge of climate change. That involves tough decisions, not the kind of nonsense that we saw from the Leader of the Opposition yesterday.

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