Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian Labor Party, as part of their attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the Australian public last year, saw the Treasurer stand up and say, 'This will be the first year of surplus, followed by four years or three years of surplus thereafter.' That is what he said; those were his words on last year's budget. And we now know the truth: instead of it being a billion-dollar surplus—we knew Labor were never going to get there; we flagged it at the time—it has actually turned into, low and behold, a $19 billion deficit.

But as part of the grubby attempt by Labor to deliver a surplus on paper, even though there was absolutely no way they would deliver a surplus in reality, they introduced the initiative that is contained within schedule 1 of this bill. That initiative is to bring forward company tax payments from the quarterly approach to now being required to be paid monthly. That window of the first 12 months, the change from quarterly reporting to monthly reporting, with payments being made to the tax office as a direct result, saw an injection of cash into the federal government to make up for the fact that there would be a change from four times per year to 12 times per year, which saw a short-term injection of cash. And that, on paper, meant the Australian Labor Party were able to bolster their books and there would be just that little bit of extra cash sitting in there, which helped the Treasurer to fall across the line when it came to delivering his so-called billion-dollar budget surplus.

They made this announcement with no consultation, no forewarning, no attempt to determine what the compliance impact was going to be. Instead, the only thing that the Treasurer was concerned about was if that was going to help to prop up his pathetic billion-dollar paper surplus. And now, 12 months later, we know there was no billion-dollar surplus. Instead we have another $19 billion deficit—just the latest in a series of deficits as part of the $190 billion of deficits this government has run up since they were elected—as part of their inexorable march towards reaching gross public debt, a peak approaching $400 billion.

Here we are, 12 months later, and the government are ramming this bill through the parliament. And they are doing so, as I said, with no regard to the compliance cost on those businesses that now have to change to report monthly instead of quarterly. Part of the problem is that in making this change, given that we did not even have a surplus and we had another $19 billion deficit, there will not be a surplus next year, there will be an $18 billion deficit; there will not be a surplus the year after that, there will be another deficit. For as long as Labor are in power there will be deficits. But despite that, the entire policy rationale for making this change has evaporated because we are not in surplus anyway. And instead companies, trusts, a whole range of different individuals now have to put up with all the extra paperwork and the compliance to satisfy schedule 1 of this bill. We attempted to apply some parliamentary scrutiny and attempted to discern what the impact would be on business. The Labor Party shut it down; the executive arm of government shut down parliamentary scrutiny.

The coalition sought to say: 'What are the impacts of these TLA No. 2 bill? What will it actually mean in terms of compliance? In respect of schedules 3, 4 and 5, what will their impact be on tax agents? What will the impact be on financial planners, on tax advisers?' Those schedules, again, have not seen the light of day. It is not as if the government or the Department of the Treasury or others have been out there massaging the stakeholders, saying: 'Look, can you explain this to us? We want to make sure that public policy represents best practice. Can you tell us: how can we change the laws to help you do your job? Explain to us: what can we do in terms of public policy to make sure the Australian people are better off as a consequence of our changes?' No, that is not Labor's approach. That is not the approach of this government. Instead they shove these changes into this TLA bill.

We the coalition attempted to refer the bill off for parliamentary inquiry before the committee system, as should be the case. What does Labor do? They shut it down. They use their numbers to make sure there is no inquiry and instead they just push the bill through the parliament with the support, once again I expect, of the so-called puppet Independents—the member for Lyne and the member for Windsor and others who will just allow this to go through, again just washing their hands, as Pontius Pilate did, of any of the consequent impacts in terms of red tape, compliance and livelihoods on tax agents and in terms of the impact of the changes on those tax agents and the Australian people who rely on the financial advice they receive. They will just wash their hands of it and say, 'We want stability in government.'

There are absolutely no points for understanding that this is just another nail in the coffin of this government, another reason the Australian people do not trust a government that undertakes decisions like this, that runs scared from parliamentary scrutiny, that does not have the decency to talk to stakeholders whose livelihoods rely on this. It is a government that does not care about what the public policy ramifications will mean for the mums and dads who will go and see financial planners and make decisions about their financial security and their futures off the back of changes that are contained within these laws.

That is the reason the Australian people are fed up with the Australian Labor Party. They have good reason to be because Labor are just so arrogant when it comes to their approach to governing. Labor are completely obsessed with ramming through whatever they can in these final two weeks and one day of parliament without any regard for what the impact on the community will be.

We in the coalition will use the brief periods that we have to highlight all the shortfalls that we see contained within laws like this. When the Australian people hear that all the extra red tape and all the extra compliance contained within this bill are here for one reason only—because the Treasurer, the member for Lilley, needed to try to deliver a couple of hundred million of extra revenue, on paper, one financial year to try to prop up his pathetic attempt to reach a budget surplus—only to know that we have a $19 billion deficit and therefore there was no point to the change whatsoever, no wonder they will just say, 'They are a joke.'

The Labor Party is a joke and should be branded a joke because this represents the lowest form and the lowest approach to public policy that could possibly exist. There are no benchmarks here, no gold standard, no world best practice with the approach contained within this bill. That is not even with respect to tax matters. That is with respect to parliamentary scrutiny. Remember the days of 'let the sunshine in'. They have closed the curtains and drawn the blinds. That is what is going on. It is entirely consistent—I notice the minister at the table—with the approach that Labor also adopted with respect to Gonski, another multibillion dollar approach.

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