Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Hansard source

On Monday the shadow Treasurer said that he would move these amendments and the government froze, despite the fact that the shadow Treasurer foreshadowed these very initiatives during the election—simple initiatives that say to Australian taxpayers as shareholders of Australia, ‘You deserve to know how your taxes are being spent.’ After the shadow Treasurer foreshadowed that he would move these very straightforward and not complex amendments that say to every taxpayer, ‘We will tell you how your taxes are spent’—something that is most basic in a tax system and certainly, as the shadow Treasurer pointed out, most basic in a new paradigm of openness where we are going to let the sunshine in; in fact, we were going to tear the roof off the House of Representatives—what did the government do? The government closed down debate on their own legislation on Monday and the contribution we have just heard from the Assistant Treasurer is, amazingly, the product of 48 hours work. For 48 hours, they have been trying to come up with a ragbag of excuses on how to say to Australian taxpayers, ‘We are not going to tell you how your individual taxes are spent.’ It is as pure and simple as that.

The shadow Treasurer’s amendments are very straightforward. They say, ‘For a given amount of tax you pay, we will tell you how that money is spent proportionately within the budget.’ As the shadow Treasurer pointed out, it includes all areas of expenditure, including net debt. Obviously, this is something the government is sensitive about. We think that for taxpayers to be able to access that information is sensible and basic. The Assistant Treasurer said that all this information is available. Forty-eight hours of work and presumably advice from the Taxation Office and he has got it completely wrong. The information on general spending is available and the pie charts are available, but what is not available is the amounts on a given amount of tax paid by an individual. That is the purpose of these amendments. As the shadow Treasurer said, if someone has paid $20,000 in tax, notionally here are the dollar amounts per item that the Commonwealth is spending.

It is very interesting in this debate that the Assistant Treasurer stands here and says he is rejecting the amendments. It is very easy to see why. When the amendments were put forward, the government wanted to think about them. The Assistant Treasurer was not here at that point—he was delayed, I understand—but the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer was here and said he needed to adjourn the debate to think about the amendments. Having thought about them, he presumably went to the Taxation Office and everywhere in the ministerial wing to ask people to think of every possible excuse they could, including the bizarre excuse we just heard that taxpayers may not like the way the government is spending money and may litigate. I have to tell you that they know in many respects the level of the debt but they do not know their individual components. This is laughable. We here on this side of the House are going to stand up for Australian taxpayers.

To those members opposite—I notice the member for McEwen, my neighbour here—and other members here, it will be very interesting to see how you vote on these amendments because you will be saying to every taxpayer in your electorate that as their representative you went to Canberra and one of your first acts as a new member of parliament was to vote to prevent them from finding out how their taxes were spent. That is going to be one of your first votes before Christmas. A great Christmas present! With the Labor Party, on so many issues, the public comes second best. The Assistant Treasurer’s tone was almost like, ‘We cannot tell them the truth, they cannot handle the truth.’ His contribution today, after 48 hours of preparation, shows that the government at their heart want to conceal information. As the shadow Treasurer said, this is a classic example of the very thing the Independents are arguing for and they should vote for that accordingly.

See this speech in context