Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

From Bizarro World opposite I hear a member of the government shouting out, 'Hear, hear,' as though we are not currently debating a bill to put in place increased taxes. You can say, 'hear, hear,' all you like, but the fact is that this is a government which is increasing taxes.

On 10 May 2012. Tony Abbott in his budget reply speech said: 'People who work hard should not be hit with higher taxes'. On 16 August 2011, he said:

A very clear message is going out from the Australian people to this government: there can be no tax collection without an election. If this government had any honesty, any decency, that is what we would have—an election now.

The clear implication of that is that this parliament cannot debate an increase in fuel taxes without a new election. It is very clear that the Prime Minister went to the last election promising lower taxes and, if he is to be held to his own test of no new taxes without an election, then there must surely be an election before we can increase fuel taxes. If not, the Prime Minister would be a liar—and I am sure he would not want to be that.

On 22 August 2011, Mr Abbott said again:

I have often said, and members of this House will no doubt hear me say it again, there should be no new tax collection without an election.

On 14 September 2011, he said:

I say to this Prime Minister: there should be no new tax collection without an election.

Of course, this was at the stage where his speeches were about as interesting as his choice of ties.

On 14 March 2012, Mr Abbott said, 'What you will get under us is tax cuts without new taxes.' That is Tony Abbott again pledging that taxes will be lower. Here we go, 6 August 2013 at a doorstop: 'Taxes will always be lower under a coalition government.' You can bet that, if at that doorstop the journalist had said, 'So taxes will be lower? Does that mean that you won't be increasing fuel taxes?', Tony Abbott would naturally have said, yes, he would not be increasing fuel taxes.

On 15 August 2013, in Tasmania, Tony Abbott said, 'I am determined not to increase the overall tax burden on anyone.' When he was speaking to Mark Reilly from 7Newsone of his favourite interviewers—Mark Reilly said to Tony Abbott, 'But aren't you going to have to increase taxes yourself'? Tony Abbott replied, 'No.' A one-word answer—very straightforward. And if Mr Abbott had wanted weasel room to say that he was going to increase fuel taxes, he could have given a different answer.

He made all of these promises. I have taken a good chunk of the House's time in outlining Tony Abbott's pre-election promises not to raise taxes. How seriously should we have taken those pledges? What was the test to which Mr Abbott placed himself? Well, interviewed by the doyenne of the press gallery, Michelle Grattan, Tony Abbott just a few days before last year's election said, 'You should move heaven and earth to keep commitments, and only if keeping commitments becomes almost impossible could you ever be justified in not keeping them'.

That is Mr Abbott's view about promise keeping, yet he is breaking promises on fuel taxation as he is on so many other things. In fact, Australians would reasonably think that Mr Abbott has never met a promise that he would not break.

To quote the member for Wentworth, Malcom Turnbull, on the issue of carbon pricing, he said in a beautifully worded blog—and sometimes the best writing is done in cold fury—on 7 December 2009:

Tony himself has, in just four or five months, publicly advocated the blocking of the [emissions trading scheme], the passing of the ETS, the amending of the ETS and, if the amendments were satisfactory, passing it, and now the blocking of it. His only redeeming virtue in this remarkable lack of conviction is that every time he announced a new position to me he would preface it with 'Mate, mate, I know I am a bit of a weathervane on this, but . . . '.

Frankly, this is why I have a bit of a smile on my face every now and then when the Prime Minister stands to his feet during question time and quotes past writings on issues, 'on which I have shifted my view', because if there is one weathervane in this parliament it is the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is not only breaking a promise; he is not only putting in place a new tax; but he is putting in place a new tax which, as the Leader of The Nationals, or should I say—given that we have the member for New England here—the current Leader of The Nationals is saying, it is a tax on distance.

This is an environment in which the government is imposing investment in public transport. He is doing this, not because public transport investments do not meet a strong benefit-cost test but, because the government has an ideological predisposition to oppose public transport. As Tony Abbott wrote in Battlelines, 'Public transport is generally slow, expensive, not especially reliable and still a hideous drain on the public purse'. It is like that old conservative view that 'anybody seen on a bus over 30 has been a failure in life'. Those opposite hate public transport. They are not willing to invest in it, so what choice will Australians have but to pay higher fuel taxes every time they get in the car, whether it is popping down to the local grocery store or picking up the kids?

John Howard, when he paused fuel indexation said that it would, 'impose a welcome discipline on future governments.' Well, there is no discipline from this government. This is a government which has increased the deficit since coming to office. For all its talk about deficits, the deficit is bigger now than it was when the government came to office. Do not take Labor's word on that; that is comparing the latest budget with the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook.

Where will the money go? Let's not forget the Prime Minister's oft-stated view that taxes are never justified regardless of where the money will go, but if we look specifically at where the money is supposed to go it will go into a special road-funding account. A very special account. The kind of account that was often favoured in the National Party pork-barrelling days of yore. Under Labor, we set up strict rules. At Infrastructure Australia we used benefit-cost analysis in order to determine road funding. But this new road-funding account will be a slush fund. Given the government's track record on tax-and-spend pork-barrelling, this sort of a road slush fund is going to be about as useful as a one-way bridge.

The question now is: will The Nationals vote for it? It is a pleasure to have the member for New England sitting opposite—

Mr Joyce interjecting—

And I am glad that he says the pleasure is mutual! The member for New England's views were canvassed in a very interesting piece in the AFR Weekend, by Geoff Kitney, on 18-19 January 2014, in which an anonymous source said:

"Barnaby isn't interested in good policy," … "He's only interested in what will make him popular in the bush."

That was of course the view that then Senator Joyce took on many an occasion when he was in the Senate. He crossed the floor 28 times. Indeed, one floor crossing was on the very issue of fuel taxation. A somewhat complicated floor crossing took place on 22 June 2006, in which, on his return to the chamber, Hansard recorded Senator Joyce as saying:

I just went to the bathroom and missed the vote. I record my vote for the ayes to the Democrats’ amendment.

That was one of 28 floor crossings by then Senator Joyce. That one was on the issue of fuel taxation. So the question for the now member for New England is: will he cross the floor on this one? Will he be willing to vote for higher fuel taxes in the bush or will he stand up for the interests of rural and regional Australia?

Are we going to be in the situation whereby the only people who are standing up against higher fuel taxes in this place are the Labor Party and, extraordinarily—if you can believe them today, because they do vote with the government on a lot of things these days—the Greens? Will the member for New England stand against fuel taxes or for fuel taxes? If he followed his record in the Senate, he would be voting with the Labor Party on this. He would come over to this side of the House, he would sit between the member for Lingiari and me, and the three of us could have great chat about how we are working together to oppose increased fuel taxes.

If the member for New England was taking the approach of the now Leader of the Nationals, who of course everybody knows he will most likely knock off at the next election, he would take the view that this was going to be a tax on distance and would oppose it.

So there is an opportunity in this debate. The member for New England can stand up and say that he is going to make it the 29th fuel crossing—

Mr Joyce interjecting—

The member for New England is welcome to ask me a question whenever he likes, but it is a bit hard to kind of follow the steady pace at which he throws questions in. Sometimes he does go a little red in the face, even sitting at the table. But the challenge here for every member of The Nationals in the House, in the Senate, is: will they vote for higher fuel taxes or lower fuel taxes? And if they vote for higher fuel taxes, it does suggest that the National Party is only willing to be a rubber stamp for the Liberal Party. It does suggest that the old days of the National Party standing up and fighting for their constituents are long gone. And it suggests that the ambition of the member for New England, Barnaby Joyce, is not to stand up for his constituents, is not to be willing to cross the floor, but is to do whatever the Liberal Party says and to be a rubber stamp for the Liberal Party.

That is the choice, Member for New England, and we on this side of the House look forward to seeing what you will do.

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