Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

May I commend you, Madam Deputy Speaker Burke, on the very fine job you are doing in the chair since your ascension to this high office. I look at these amendments to the Tax Laws Amendment (2012 Measures No. 2) Bill 2012 with some amazement. On page 65, lines 1 to 21 were written and printed only weeks ago. The ink is barely dry on this document and we have an amendment to the government's own budget. The ink is barely dry on the legislation and the government is amending it. What does that say to the Australian people? It says that we have a government that lacks the competency to implement the budget that it handed down just back in May.

One of the really interesting things about that budget night was looking around the galleries when the Treasurer was delivering the budget. What did we see? We saw galleries that were half empty for the Treasurer's speech. I have never seen that before. I have never seen a Treasurer deliver a budget where he could not even fill the galleries. I think that is because the Australian people have no confidence in this Treasurer. They have no confidence in this government. The fact that this amendment is being put before this House to effectively rescind a proposal within the government's own budget—delivered only six weeks ago—shows the lack of competence in this government. It shows the lack of ability of this government to maintain a policy position. It shows the lack of ability of this government to follow through and provide the sort of certainty that the Australian people need.

These amendments are a worry not only because they rescind a measure announced in the budget but also because they reflect the wider competence of this government, and that is why consumer confidence is so low. That is why business confidence is so low. The Australian people lack confidence in this government. It is quite astounding.

We have had the promise: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead,' and no sooner did the Prime Minister get into office than—what do you know?—the government changed its mind. In this case, we have a proposal to change the withholding tax contained within the budget and only weeks later the government has changed its mind. How can business plan for the future when we have a government that cannot maintain a position for more than a few weeks? Australian business needs to make long-term decisions based on sound policy and we have a government that is doing backflip after backflip on its own budget document. That is hardly inspiring the sort of confidence that Australian business needs to make the investments that are going to drive future jobs and employment within this country.

No wonder small business is doing it tough. No wonder the customers are not coming through the door. They are concerned about the competence of this government. They are concerned about the fact that they cannot rely on the word of this government, the Prime Minister or the Assistant Treasurer. I think the Assistant Treasurer will go down as Nostradamus: being able to forecast and claim a budget surplus when he has not delivered it. He is, indeed, showing up Nostradamus, because we will not know whether this government has delivered a budget surplus. It has so far delivered the four biggest deficits in this nation's history. Now we have the Assistant Treasurer already claiming a surplus, but we are not going to know whether that surplus is delivered until September next year. I do not know that the electors of Lindsay will accept this rather Nostradamus-like prediction that this government is going to deliver a surplus. We see the sorts of measures contained in this amendment eroding the very surplus that this government is claiming to be able to deliver over the next financial year when the Australian people have no faith in that at all. They do not have confidence in this government. They do not have confidence in the ability of this government to maintain a policy position. They are certainly showing that they are concerned about this economy through poor consumer confidence and poor business confidence, and this government is at fault on all counts.

See this speech in context