Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

This is the third strike. Isn't it of great interest to everyone that when these ministers come in to give these humiliating backdowns through an amendment to their own legislation, they have the shortest speeches? It could be a 45-second speech, which is the smallest limit on a speech in this place. But here we have the minister come up and, in a low tone, say, 'Look, we are changing our legislation—the legislation that we introduced only a few days ago; the legislation that was again the cornerstone of the budget—and we are dumping the CPI increase'. I want you to hear this. You guys have gone through more wheels and turns on this than a rotor blade. How do you feel about that? Aren't you humiliated? Be it the passenger movement charge or be it withholding tax on managed investment schemes, who is running the shop over there? Who is running the shop? It is a simple question.

Minister, I ask you to come up and explain why you are dumping this proposal from your bill and why you have not said it in relation to the amendment. They will not say it because pride beats big time in their chests. No, the fact of the matter is the Labor Party was staring yet again at defeat on a budget measure that they got dead wrong.

For how long have we heard the Treasurer in this place talk about a patchwork economy? He rarely says it these days. He would get up here and he would bleed for the tourism industry. The shadow tourism minister would say it is outrageous the way they are treating the tourism industry. But the shadow tourism minister and all the people on this side of the House were saying that the tourism industry is doing it tough because of the high Australian dollar and because of what is happening overseas. The government says, yes, the tourism industry is doing it tough. But the government's logic—like its logic in so many other areas—is to increase taxes on the industry because taxes are good to you and good for you, according to the Labor Party. We want you to double the carbon tax, double the mining tax and double income tax. Double all those taxes is what the Labor Party should do because there is one thing about the Labor Party you know and I know: they know how to tax. They know how to hit you in the hip pockets.

Just today we had a bill on interest on withholding tax in managed investment trusts. The Labor Party announced in the budget they were cutting it from 30 per cent to 7½ per cent, which they did previously, then they were going to double it to 15 per cent. And today they excised it from the bill. What happened? After question time they said they were going to reintroduce a new bill in exactly the same way tomorrow. How does that work? Why are they doing that? Senator Penny Wong, the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, belled the cat when she said they could not get it through because of the opposition and the Greens. Then why are they re-introducing it tomorrow? If you were wondering about sovereign risk, if you were wondering about negativity then look no further than the Labor Party in relation to this. They say the industry is doing it tough, so then they hit it with an increase in the passenger movement charge. By the way, they will not just hit you in the coming budget for the coming year; they are going to hit you every year after that because that is what the Labor Party does.

How humiliating for a minister to come in here and amend his own budget bill. It is like that great scene at the end of TheHunt for Red October when the Russian ambassador comes in and says, 'Mr Minister, we have lost Red October.' The American official says, 'What? You've lost another one?' Here we have it, groundhog day: what, you have lost another budget measure? Where did that go? Is it in the dispatch box? Is it under the table? Is it hiding under the shoes of the member for Paterson? Where is it? Where is the budget measure?

The bottom line is that when it comes to tax you do not want to stand between the Labor Party and a new tax policy. When it comes to treating the tourism industry with contempt, the Labor Party is A1. They are the best. Look no further than this bill and look no further than their humiliation on this amendment.

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