David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Hansard source

Matters that go to carbon pricing are very adequately set out in the budget. I thank the member for Flinders for his suggestion that this has been an undergraduate contribution. I will get back to his postgraduate contribution, which was back when he believed in actually doing something to tackle the problems of the planet. But now he is more interested in self-promotion, and that means within the Liberal Party that you do not get ahead if you assert the valid view that you tackle climate change by pricing carbon. So he has put his own interests and self-advancement ahead of the duty that each and every one of us in this place has to bring the values that we believe in, enshrine them in the laws of the land and make this country a better place. That is what we have done on this side.

When it comes to economic management, I have to say that, for all the facts and figures that the member for North Sydney wants to blurt out, you did not hear him talk about the tax-to-GDP ratio. The tax-to-GDP ratio, where we look at the size of the economy and the tax that the government is collecting as a percentage of the size of the economy, is the best measure of the tax burden. It is considerably lower today than it was when we came to office. It was 23.7 per cent when we came to office; that is what the Howard government was taxing people at. It is 21.5 per cent in the current year. They talk about the tax burden. As a percentage of the economy, this government is collecting less than 22 per cent of GDP in tax collection; they were collecting almost 24 per cent. If we were taxing at the same rate as they were when they left office we would be in a comfortable surplus, but the reality is there have been revenue write-downs and cyclical and structural factors that we face.

In terms of some of the structural factors, we have put in place a proposal to tackle some of the profit-shifting activity that has been going on, where big multinationals shift profits into low-tax or no-tax jurisdictions to avoid paying their fair share. I speak to many of these companies and they point out: 'This is not a question of morality; we are doing what is legal.' I say, 'Well, I don't think it's very moral.' They say, 'If you don't think it's very moral, you're the law-maker—change the laws.' You know what? That is what we are proposing: to change the laws so that we can make sure that multinational enterprises, which are some of the most profitable enterprises in the globe and profiting from economic activity occurring here in Australia, are paying their fair share—like all the mums and dads that head off to Penrith station in my electorate at five o'clock in the morning to head into the city to work each day. They pay their fair share of tax. The small, home based business in Glenmore Park is paying its fair share of tax, but these big multinationals often locate their profits in tax havens or low-tax jurisdictions and avoid their obligations.

We want to stop it. But every time we have brought an amendment into this place—and we have brought $11 billion worth of them—what have those opposite done? They have voted against it. If there is a rort, a rip-off or a loophole they will be in there trying to protect it. This goes to a question of values. We believe we have to crack down on these loopholes and that is what we are doing.

I do not have a lot of time left and in the time left to me I must take the opportunity to talk about the high-taxing ways of those opposite, and the latest iteration of their high-taxing tendencies is this paid parental leave tax. Tony Abbott is a man who can absolutely be believed on parental leave questions because, when he was last in office as a minister of the Crown and had a chance to do something, he said, 'When it comes to parental leave it will happen over my dead body.' Over my dead body! What a commitment he had to parental leave when he last had a chance. But now he has this you-beaut, mickey mouse, Rolls Royce version where a woman on $1 million a year can take $75,000 for that period while she is on leave. There are people all around the country who will never earn $75,000 a year.

And who is going to pay for it? Companies. Remember: this is the mob that told you, 'It is a great, big, new tax and when you tax a big company it's going to flow through and be passed on in higher prices and we'll all pay, so you don't tax big companies—you actually tax all of us.' That is what they told us, but all of a sudden they are proposing a great, big, new tax. They say it is fully funded. A 1½ per cent levy on 3,000 companies will not fully fund their program. They are going to have to jack up that tax or spread it on to more and more people. See the member for Goldstein—body language is a great thing!—as he starts to have that nervous itch and twitch. He knows that this is a shambolic policy. He knows it is a sham and that, if they are going to deliver it, they are going to have to jack up taxes by more than 1½ per cent on those businesses and that will mean higher costs for consumers. (Time expired)

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