Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Competitiveness) Share this | Hansard source

As each day goes by this parliament becomes more astonishing. After question time, coalition frontbenchers stood up and made personal explanations, including the Leader of the Opposition, who denied that he has a policy to increase company tax. Then he went straight into the matter of public importance where he reaffirmed that the coalition would, indeed, have a paid parental leave scheme over and above that which has already been implemented. Either the coalition has just announced that it will not increase company tax by 1½ per cent, which was their pre-election commitment—and that is the basis of the personal explanation that the opposition leader gave—or they have just increased their $70 billion black hole by another $3 billion.

Where do I get the $3 billion figure? I get it from the 2010 coalition election policy. It is actually $3 billion a year, which would make it $12 billion over the period of the forward estimates. So $70 billion just grew to $82 billion. The coalition now has an $82 billion black hole, because the Leader of the Opposition stood up and gave a personal explanation saying there is no proposal to increase company tax. That is news to the member for Indi, who has said on Q&A, 'It is a small levy on a small number of businesses.' They are reaffirming what they said at the last election, that there will be a 1½ per cent increase in company tax for larger companies. The opposition leader said that is not true anymore. He took a personal explanation and the $70 billion black hole just grew to $82 billion.

While they were parading their righteous indignation by taking personal explanations, the shadow Treasurer—when he took a personal explanation—said that he had never mentioned a $70 billion funding problem. But the shadow Treasurer said:

Therefore finding 50, 60 or 70 billion is about identifying waste and identifying areas where you do not need to proceed with programs.

He made no apologies for that. The shadow Treasurer said that on the Sunrise program on 12 August 2011, but just took a personal explanation and said he has never talked about a $70 billion funding hole.

See this speech in context