Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I think from this matter of public importance we have just seen why Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, is not fit to be Prime Minister of this country— because he has failed the leadership test. At a time when the country is seeking unity after the greatest natural disaster ever to hit us, he seeks to divide the community for his own political ambition, not because he has a credible alternative but for his own grubby political ambition. That is not leadership; that is shameful.

This is a nation that is in mourning, it is a nation that has been devastated, but it is also a nation that came together when it mattered. It came together in grief, it came together in emergency, it came together in its relief efforts and it came together in the clean-up. What people expect of us as a parliament is that we come together in helping them to rebuild. That is why we have sought to get bipartisan support for this position. Those who are the victims and those who have helped would ask nothing less than for us as a parliament to demonstrate a preparedness to work together. Of the members that I have been around with who said that same thing to me on the ground when I visited their electorates, inspected the devastation and talked about the need for a partnership and urged me that we have to work together, I cannot believe that they have allowed their leader, with very little internal debate, as I understand it, to announce this decision to oppose the levy.

The truth is that this is going to require a massive rebuild. This is something the country has not experienced before and, quite frankly, if we can get our act together, we can generate opportunity, we can generate hope and we can generate a rebuild which is stronger than that which was devastated. But it does require us to do it together. Everywhere that I have visited I have heard positive responses to our calls for the need for a national partnership to be involved in this rebuild. With the mayors that I have spoken with and the involvement of the regional development bodies—I see a member of the opposition laughs at the suggestion of the mayors being involved—I made the point that the mayors have a critical involvement in this selection because they will help us determine the priorities. We need to have that local input, we need to have their engagement and we need to have their commitment. That is why we have been out there engaging with them to achieve that very purpose. But we also need cooperation across the shires. That is why we need to look at the impact, particularly of the infrastructure losses, to see how the communities can be connected.

We have talked about the partnership not just with local government but also with state government, because the national disaster relief arrangements require that partnership by legislation. But it also has to be a partnership that involves the private sector, the insurance sector and NGOs. If we are to drive the partnership, we have to show the leadership. That is what this exercise is about. It is about this government, our Prime Minister, demonstrating that we are prepared to stump up, that we do appreciate the magnitude of the problem and that we are prepared to make a commitment, but it is a commitment that has to be achieved through a number of different mechanisms from our point of view. One of them is the levy, but the levy involves in a two-to-one ratio what we are prepared to put in through savings in the budget. In other words, the savings measures that we have announced to fund this effort contribute twice as much as that which would be raised by the levy.

Let me come to the levy question. I have talked about the lack of leadership demonstrated by the Leader of the Opposition, but his hypocrisy is breathtaking. This is a leader and an opposition—and I heard the interjections across the table during question time, particularly from the shadow minister for finance—who say that tax is not leadership. I think you had better go and talk to the former Prime Minister and the former Treasurer about that test. Weren’t they the ones that introduced to the nation the mother of all taxes, the GST, on the basis of their saying, ‘This requires leadership and we are showing leadership’? They criticised us as an opposition for opposing them and said that we would not join them in that leadership. What cant; what hypocrisy. So don’t come in here and talk about that.

Quite apart from the GST, the mother of all taxes in this country, we have six levies that they introduced, including an 11c levy on milk. That raised $2 billion whilst it was in operation. Milk is basic food and they put a levy on it to fund the restructuring of the dairy industry. They talk about us not planning properly for natural disasters. Who could have planned for the one of the magnitude we have just had, I might add. But what about planning for the restructuring of an industry as important as the dairy industry? What was the solution? A tax on every Australian for every litre of milk that they purchased.

Then there was a 3c levy on every kilogram of sugar. Why? Because they failed so miserably in their negotiations for a free trade agreement with the United States that they left sugar out, sold the National Party down the drain and made the Australian public pay for it. Then there were the guns levy buyback and East Timor levy, both of those precisely the same formula as the levy we are proposing. So, for all the argument about the superannuation and the compensation, the levy that you imposed for the guns buyback and the East Timor levy would have applied exactly the same way. Do not give us any more of your cant and hypocrisy.

Then we had a levy for the bailout of Ansett. They refused to step in and try to save the airline. When the thing collapsed in front of them because of inaction, they put another levy on. Then there was the levy for the response to terrorism—a levy on reinsurance. That is six levies and a GST. This was a government that, when it was in under John Howard, became the highest taxing government in the history of the country and still retains the highest tax-to-GDP ratio that this country has ever experienced. Do not talk to us about taxation. Do not talk to us about tax not being leadership. By your own definition you fail the leadership test. They should get out of the way of this initiative.

Then they go on to say that they can do this without the levy. They say that they can do it by further cuts to the budget. Let us go to that. First of all, they delayed their announcement of what the savings were because they could not get their act together. Then they had squabbling amongst themselves about what was in and what was out. When they turned up to announce it, it was attended by the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer but not, I note, the shadow finance minister, who is back in the chamber. He would not give it ownership. He would not dignify it, because he knew it was shonky in the same way as when they went to the last election with the promises of savings and we exposed an $11 billion hole in those savings. Now they say they want to build on it. I tell you what. Of the savings they put out the other day, $700 million was double counted. They had pocketed the savings before and already spent them. There is a pretty fundamental message in this: when you are looking to pay for something, you cannot spend money twice. If you do not understand that, it is another reason why you do not deserve to be in.

Not only was there $700 million that was double counted, $480 million of it was opposed by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, who just spoke in the seconding of it. This is an opposition that has no credibility whatsoever. This is an opposition that is hypocritical. This is an opposition that is divided. What we have is a Leader of the Opposition desperately scrambling to shore up his leadership credentials, but he is doing it to try to drive disunity in the Australian public. What this nation requires is unity. It wants us to pull together. I suggest the Leader of the Opposition should drop his opposition to this tax or, at the appropriate time when asked, maintain a dignified silence. (Time expired)

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