Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

What we saw was a number of coalition MPs—I think the Leader of the Nationals was standing in the Leader of the Opposition’s shadow, as he is wont to do—with a very nasty poster behind them. I thought, being charitable to members of the opposition, that perhaps they had been set up and that somehow an extremist had come in behind them to embarrass them. But I found out from other reports about the rally that the chap with the poster—whatever you thought of it—had been standing there and the Liberal MPs came and stood in front of it.

Then I went further. I had a look at the website of the No Carbon Tax rally group. The website was advertised on some of the T-shirts that members at the rally were wearing. This unusual website includes a 10-second guide to the world of climate change sceptics and a sceptics handbook—that would surely be one of the shortest books in the English language, the world of climate change sceptics. They say that CO2 is not pollution and does not need to be reduced in the first place. They say it is natural, we exhale it and it is needed by plants to grow. Then they say that even if CO2 were dangerous—which is an interesting concession—and even if we reduced it successfully in Australia or even globally, there is no physical evidence that it would have any beneficial effect on the climate. They describe global warming as the great 21st-century climate change folly. The website has a link to the climate change sceptics shop—that would be fun to shop at; the Climate Sceptics political party—I do not know if they are registered yet; and Menzies House. Some of the slogans yesterday were: ‘CO2 is just tree food’, ‘carbon tax is a tax on fresh air’, ‘don’t tax the air we breathe’, ‘CO2 really ain’t pollution’ and ‘climate change is crap’.

What concerns me is not that some people hold unusual views—that is a factor in our democracy; what concerns me is that the alternative government of Australia chooses to associate itself with some of these extreme views. I can only wonder if indeed the Leader of the Nationals will be seeking policy advice from Charlie Sheen next. He is not doing the sitcom; he could dial in to shadow cabinet every week, or maybe just once a month, to give the guys a bit of a leg-up.

Just as what we saw yesterday was ridiculous, another myth that the opposition pedal about the tax situation in Australia is that somehow if they were in power taxation would be marvellously low and we would be led to a land of milk and honey under the National Party and the Liberal Party and that, by contrast, Labor is dangerous on taxation. Let’s just deal with this myth. In 2007, when the Howard government was defeated at the polls, Commonwealth taxation as a proportion of the GDP was 23½ per cent. Now, in 2009-10, it is down to 20.3 per cent. Ladies and gentlemen, the facts do not lie. We have seen this driven in part by the economic slowdown in corporate revenue falls and the tax take but we have seen significant personal tax cuts. The tax burden in Australia has us measured as the sixth lowest in the OECD.

Under Labor, we have a better tax regime and we have a better chance to reform the economy. Someone who is on $50,000 this year is paying $1,750 less tax than in 2007-08. But, of course, we have not forgotten the pensioners and we have increased the pensions. We have increased the pensions by $128 a fortnight for single pensioners and around $116 a fortnight for pensioner couples. We are making sure there is an education tax refund, we have the Medicare Teen Dental Plan, the childcare rebate and we are improving the returns for people who get family tax benefit A. We have extended the tax refund to school uniforms, there is paid parental leave and we have not taxed large companies in order to get the paid parental leave. We are providing paid paternity leave for fathers, and there will be further pension increases in the course of this year. We want to make tax returns easier. This means there will be standard deductions of $500 rising to $1,000. We are providing tax relief to savings accounts.

One of the ways we are doing this marvellous list of accomplishments is through the minerals resource rent tax. What we are doing is ensuring that the benefits of the minerals boom are spread throughout the whole economy. We are doing this through making sure that the proceeds of the MRRT will go to infrastructure in the states of Western Australia and Queensland and elsewhere. We are also making sure that we can increase superannuation for 8.5 million Australians.

What we are doing is working like Trojans to improve our tax system. We want to boost our national savings. We want to increase our superannuation. We want to decrease company tax rates. The Henry review made clear that it was far wiser to tax immobile resources than mobile resources because mobile capital could be moved all around the world and it was a far better idea to tax immobile resources such as minerals. What we are doing with that is moving our taxation system to reallocate it to fall more on the immobile resources, and we are seeking to lower the corporate tax rate. We want to provide superannuation for low-income earners. We want to raise the concessional caps. We want to raise the level of the superannuation guarantee from 70 to 75. We want to introduce a tax discount on interest. We want to see the phasing down of international withholding tax. (Time expired)

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