Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources) Share this | Hansard source

I am sure the people of Toowoomba would be happy to pay a flood levy were they to get a cent of that flood levy back—just one cent would be good. We will take one cent, but we get nothing of course.

And we all know that new taxes are part of this new budget. Taxes will be applied not only through a flood levy but through an LPG levy, through a CNG levy, through an LNG levy, through a carbon levy, through the mining tax levy, of course, and through the PRRT, the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax. Every time the people of my electorate look up they pay a new tax and get nothing back.

This is a tax and spend government. It is a government that has a history of being unable to manage its money. It is a government that has managed to take a $70 billion cash in the bank operation to a $107 billion debt. It is a government that does not know the value of money and does not respect the taxpayers of Australia, who have to earn that money before they contribute it to a government that wastes it.

Missing from this budget are the figures of the carbon tax—this much vaunted tax that will change nothing in terms of emissions of the world. It will change nothing in terms of lowering greenhouse gases in the world, because all it will do is move industry from Australia to China, to Russia, to India, to Indonesia, to Korea and to all of those countries that have made it clear in the last few days that they are not going to continue to tax their industries under any suggestion that there is a global agreement on lower greenhouse gas emissions. Those countries have made it absolutely clear that they will not sign up to the extra emissions targets of the Kyoto agreement.

So, here we have a government in Australia that delivers a budget that drives Australia further into debt, a budget that offers Australian families no hope but for higher taxes, and a budget where families know that this government cannot manage to spend the money in a way that produces a tangible outcome for all Australians. Then the government watches as every other country steps back from an agreement on lowering greenhouse gas emissions while Australia is quite prepared to continue to tax our jobs and our industries while those industries move overseas.

This budget is a disgrace. And the disgrace of this budget is only surpassed by the government that handed it down. We have a Treasurer who has no idea of what it means to manage an economy, to deliver a budget in surplus—a surplus that would give hope to the Australian people that this government actually knows the value of money and a government that can actually put in place projects that work.

In the 15 seconds left, I will talk a little about the insulation scheme that cost millions. I will talk a little about the Building the Education Revolution that wasted billions. In the end Australians know that this budget continues the waste, increases taxes and does not deliver any hope for the future.

I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later date.

Leave granted.

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