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

Okay, the member for Griffith was setting you up. This is the political learning curve for you. That is what it is. So when you get advice that you cannot publish net debt in these figures, I would say to you, ‘You can.’ You publish numbers all the time. The MYEFO that comes out has new updated net debt figures. Even the PEFO before an election comes out with a net debt figure. It is amazing how the government can pull out a net debt figure when it suits it, but when it has to actually write to individual taxpayers and tell them what the net debt figure is it is all too hard.

This just illustrates the fact that this is a government that does not want to be transparent. I say emphatically again that we will move this amendment every single time a tax bill comes on until the Australian people find out exactly where their tax is going—something the Labor Party does not want to tell them.

Question put:

That the amendments (Mr Hockey’s) be agreed to.

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