Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Solomon is doing a great job. So it is fantastic to get that endorsement from her. I rise today to speak on the Customs Amendment (Smuggled Tobacco) Bill 2012, which, as stated by the shadow minister, the coalition supports.

The process of the bill getting to this place sums up the Gillard government. There is a proper way to do things, there is a proper way to implement, there is a proper way to create laws; and then there is the Gillard government way. It is almost like a Marx brothers approach, like some bizarre sitcom where we are just going to create a story, create a mess, create a muddle and then we will come in and try to half fix it. This bill sums that up.

In 2009-10, because of Labor's wasteful spending, they had to cut the budget for the Customs cargo screening program by $58.1 million. We also saw their incompetence in pink batts and the BER. They would say that they had a budgetary issue, they had wasted the taxpayers' money and they had wasted the surplus presented to them when the budget was in the black, and all of a sudden they say that they are in the red—they have some issues and they are going to have to cut the Customs screening program by $58.1 million.

As a result there is less screening, and the smugglers think to themselves that there is an opportunity so they start bringing things through the borders, including tobacco. All of a sudden we have an issue with tobacco smuggling. It is quite an impact. Various surveys and reports have been done; one of which showed that in 2011 an estimated total of 2.26 million kilograms of tobacco might have been smuggled through our borders into the Australian market. That potentially was a forgone tobacco excise revenue of approximately $1 billion. So they say they will cut Customs screening to save $58 million, but the end result is that that has cost us revenue of $1 billion. Only the Gillard government could dream up such a scheme and implement it.

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