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

It is interesting that the Leader of the Opposition did not even tell the shadow Treasurer he was going to have a doorstop on asylum seekers.

But this raises a key question: what is the opposition’s policy going to be, heading into the election, on the government’s tax reform proposals? Is it to defend the status quo? Is it to support a profit based tax? Is it to reduce taxes on the resources sector? I know one thing about this; it will be very interesting in the campaign when the Leader of the Opposition turns up in Cairns and talks to the tourism industry about why they should be paying higher taxes under a Liberal government. It will be very interesting when he turns up in Geelong and talks to the manufacturing industry and tells them why they should be paying higher taxes under a Liberal government. It will be interesting when he turns up in Lismore and talks to small business there and tells them why they should be paying higher taxes under a Liberal government. Because, under his proposals, company tax will be nearly four per cent higher, there will be no $5,000 immediate write-off of costs for small business, there will be no increased superannuation and savings tax concessions and there will be no automatic tax deduction of $1,000.

It is one thing to throw verbal bombs, to throw all the one-liners and the TV grabs that we hear from the Leader of the Opposition; it is one thing to run around squawking ‘great big new tax’ every time somebody drops $10 in the street; but the moment of truth is going to arrive when the opposition will have to front up to the Australian people and indicate why they are putting the interests of one sector, which is now paying a much lower proportion of its profits as tax than it previously did on minerals that are the Australian people’s asset, ahead of all the other businesses all around Australia that are struggling to get by. That is the thing that they are going to have to explain to businesses all around the country.

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