Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank those members who have contributed to this debate. These bills increase excise and excise-equivalent customs duty on tobacco and tobacco related products under a staged process. The first 12.5 per cent increase occurred on 1 December 2013, and further 12.5 per cent increases will occur on 1 September 2014, 1 September 2015 and 1 September 2016. Additionally, commencing 1 March 2014, tobacco excise and excise-equivalent customs duty will be indexed to average weekly ordinary time—AWOT—earnings instead of the CPI. The dates of indexation will change to 1 March and 1 September each year to accommodate the release of data by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. These changes were previously gazetted on 29 November 2013 and tabled in the House of Representatives as excise and customs tariff proposals on 10 December 2013.

The government does not support the opposition's amendment. I note that the member for Boothby appropriately highlighted the hypocrisy of Labor's attempt to play political games with this bill, and I commend him on his contribution to the House. Fundamentally, the Labor Party in this debate has made a raft of inaccurate comments with regard to what they like to call the 'morals' of this side of the House. The reality is that the Labor Party should not be in a glass house when they choose to throw stones. We have seen this on an ongoing basis. The Labor Party, last financial year, took $6.1 million from trade unions as donations to their political party—

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