Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Dawson has been dancing around the matter of public importance today, which is that of the economy. It is surprising, therefore, that he does not raise the issue that he raised in his maiden speech. In his first speech to this place, the member for Dawson called for the scrapping of income tax—a bold proposal, to be sure, which I am sure that the member for Dawson is still committed to. Why is he not putting that forward? It might be something to do with the fact that the coalition are in a deep, deep black hole.

We know, of course, that in the last federal election they were a cool $11 billion down in their costings. But it has only got worse, and the hole is now $70 billion. It is kind of odd that at this point that the member for Dawson does not just say, 'Let's keep on digging and see what we find; let's scrap the income tax as well.' Why doesn't he say it? Maybe he is like his leader—maybe he is willing to say anything to any audience that will keep them happy.

In contrast, we on this side of the House have an economic record which includes keeping 200,000 people in employment in the global financial crisis and saving tens of thousands of small businesses from going to the wall. We have got rid of inefficient taxes like the dependant spouse tax offset, the entrepreneurs' tax offset and the fringe benefits tax arrangement for cars—which, perversely, was bad economics and bad environmental policy. We have done that so that we can put money where it is needed most—into the National Broadband Network, which will boost productivity, and into schools and hospital reforms that will lay the productivity agenda for the next generation.

We listened to economists when we put in place a minerals resource rent tax that taxes an immobile source of production in minerals and allows us to cut taxes on a mobile source of production—that is, corporate tax investment. When economists throughout the world told us, as the scientists do, that climate change is happening and that a price on carbon pollution is the right thing to do, we on this side of the House listened and put a price on carbon pollution; those on that side of the House just abuse economists when they do not like what they say.

We are putting in place a national disability insurance scheme—another pillar in Australia's social safety net—and we are boosting superannuation. Meanwhile, those opposite are opposing the boost to 12 per cent super. Fifteen per cent is good enough for them, and nine per cent is good enough for their constituents. They are like a duke living in a castle complaining about public housing investment.

We on this side of the House held a tax forum to look at new ideas; those on that side of the House were missing in action. Occasionally we get the odd idea from them. The members for Wentworth and Kooyong support a sovereign wealth fund. A sovereign wealth fund is like a piggybank in overseas currency, so it is useful if you have something to put in it. Do they want to put anything in it? No; they oppose the minerals resource rent tax. The members for Wentworth and Kooyong have a policy of an empty piggybank. That is their economic idea.

The member for Mayo wants a broad-based goods and services tax. He says he wants to broaden the goods and services tax but, in the next breath, he is says that he wants a narrow carbon price and attacks the notion of a broad based carbon price. Ours is not the broadest-based carbon price, but the principle is there. The member for Mayo wants to broaden the GST but to narrow the carbon price. What would the former Treasurer Peter Costello say if he could see these people now? We know what he would say, because they are opposing his own reforms. They are opposing the fuel tax reforms he brought into parliament in 2003. They are taking a position on the petroleum resource rent tax that is the opposite of what the Howard-Costello government pursued throughout the 1990s and 2000s in their litigation with Esso.

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