Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

If you do not think it is a good policy, say so. Just because it was a Labor policy. Now it is your policy. I am prepared to say it is a good policy regardless of who is in government.

A government member interjecting—

There is a funny thing about this place. If you just add one word to the best policy in the world, to the Liberal Party—it does not matter what policy it is—it is either the best policy or the worst policy in the world. It is whether it has 'Labor' attached to it. It does not matter what it does for the economy. It does not matter how good it is for the economy. It does not matter how good it is for small business. It does not matter how good it is for ordinary Australians. Even their own policy, if you just attach the word Labor to it they denounce it as being the worst thing that has ever happened.

Interestingly, I have been listening to government ministers—which is interesting in itself. They all claim to be spending more. All of them claim to be spending the most we have ever spent. This is the most we have ever spent in X. This is the most we have ever spent in Y. In fact, the Prime Minister said today that this was the best budget ever. If this is the best budget ever, the last one must have been the worst budget ever. If you have the audacity to claim that a budget could be the best budget ever, I would dare to say that the previous Liberal government budget—the one from Joe Hockey, of course—was possibly the worst budget ever. I would not have thought that but since the Prime Minister thinks one way, it must be true for the other way as well.

It just goes on and on and on. Spend, spend, spend. It would be great if we could spend all this money. The Liberals are leaving our children's grandchildren's great-grandchildren a debt for life. Burdened for life. The Liberals are burdening my children's children with a debt for life. If it was a debt when we were in government, what do you call it when you are in government and you have blown it out 2½ times? Is it no longer a debt? Unfortunately, your own budget papers call it a debt.

If Labor's instant asset tax right-off was unfunded, what is it under the Liberal Party? It is doubly unfunded. But where are they borrowing the money from? Perhaps they can explain that. Where is the money coming from? If it was unfunded then, where is it being funded from today? From borrowings. That is the simple answer. This is not too difficult or erroneous to work out. Just have a look at the budget papers. They detail it year by year: forward estimates, previous year and previous budget. They detail exactly what I am talking about.

What does this sound like to ordinary people? They are probably thinking the government is being a little hypocritical. They are right. Not only did Labor introduce the instant asset write-off—which was widely used by small business—but also we did it for four years. We believe that over the forward estimates if you are going to introduce good programs you should do that. The government is being a little sneaky with theirs. They are only going to introduce it for the next two years. That means they are giving small business a substantially smaller amount of assistance over a shorter period. It sounds bigger because it is a larger number up-front. In real terms it is not as much, because it is for half the period to start with.

There is this sort of short-term thinking, groupthink, of the government, this boom-bust approach to governing the economy, where they try to provide a boom just in this year and then let somebody else worry about the bust in future years, again leaving the debt, of course, to our children's children and their children. Let's go further: everybody's children's children's children, as was so famously said repeatedly when the Liberals and Nationals were in opposition.

A respected chief economist for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Saul Eslake, points out that almost 63 per cent of small companies will derive no benefit at all from the heralded 1.5 per cent company tax cut. 1.5 per cent is better than nothing, but seriously, I have been talking to small business in a company structure and they say, 'We'll take it, but it's not really exciting.' What Saul Eslake says is that 63 per cent of those companies are neither profitable nor taxable. The government has built itself in a little bit of margin to make itself look good and sound good and is not handing out really much assistance. Anyway, 1.5 per cent is better than nothing. Let us see when it hits the ground what it does for consumer confidence and sentiment, and for business as well.

Interestingly, as I said before, the instant asset write-off, which the government had capped at $20,000, will be about $2 billion over the forward estimates. When Labor introduced our almost identical plan—or should I say that the government copied ours—it was only $6½ thousand capped and we had a policy to lift that to $10,000, which I thought was a reasonable number. But it was actually worth substantially more—$3.55 billion over the forward estimates. We figured that the way small business operates you have to give them certainty just beyond an election cycle. They actually want to see something beyond the boom and bust policies of the Liberal government.

An even more interesting aspect of what is missing in this budget and what is missing from this government—apart from being sustainable, having a plan and actually doing something that is real—is a credible plan to lower the deficit and spend less; spend it in the right areas. One thing that really does upset a lot of Australians is this: if you are going to take the money from anybody, why take it from the poorest? Why take it from the lowest income earners? Why take it from the pensioners? This government takes, in huge grab bags full, from ordinary people.

On superannuation, the government now says it will never change, ever. I am not sure how long ever is, but I think it is a long time. Tony Abbott says 'Ever, ever. That's it. There are no more changes to super ever.' Of course, that is interesting because super is on an unsustainable growth path in terms of tax concessions, particularly for high income earners. Those high income earners are enjoying a tax concession. Everyone understands what that is. Over the forward estimates those tax concessions are valued at something around $94 billion and growing—growing at a rate so fast that they will overtake the totality of the aged pension in just four years time. This is an unsustainable path that everybody agrees with. I think even the Liberal Party agrees. I think even the National Party agrees. I do not think anyone would disagree that this is unsustainable over the long term.

At some point in time a government, be it Liberal or be it Labor, will have to take this problem head-on. It takes a little bit of courage in looking just beyond the next election cycle. Labor has already put its hand up, by the way. Labor has said, 'This is a tough issue. We are prepared to start.' If we are going to be on a sustainable path when it comes to tax concessions on superannuation, let us start at least at the very top end—those who have more than $10 million in their accounts, more than $5 million in their accounts. There is actually a path where we can work this and do it reasonably. It affects thousands of people, but a small number of thousands of people, compared to what Tony Abbott did to low income earners.

The first thing they did when coming into government, promising never to touch super—and now 'ever, ever'—was take away the low income superannuation contribution, just $500 for some of the lowest paid workers earning less than $37,000 a year. Why hit them so hard? Never, ever changing anything to super, but it is okay to hit up asset means tests for pensioners over a certain threshold. So it is okay to hit the pensioners, it is okay to hit low income workers, it is okay to hit mostly low income working women, but it is not okay—let us just be honest—for very wealthy people who honestly do not need that sort of assistance. Once you have got that sort of money you have lots of choices when it comes to investing for your retirement. You are not just bound to the superannuation system. It was never really designed for people of that capability and means when you are into the millions. It was really designed for ordinary people.

Lots of people enjoy the benefits of our super system. It just recently ticked over $2 trillion in value. It is a fantastic national savings program—thanks to Labor of course. We were fought tooth and nail by the Liberal Party all the way. They were dragged along kicking and screaming. They have always hated superannuation—not for everybody, just for ordinary Australians. They do not like superannuation for ordinary Australians. For the wealthy it is fine. The bit I do not get is that wealthy people have plenty of choices. They can invest in a whole range of ways to look after themselves in retirement.

Labor does have a plan. It is a sustainable plan and a fair plan. It is about making sure that ordinary Australians, people on low incomes, get a little bit of a hand up, a little bit of assistance, just where it is necessary—just so they can keep pace. It is about helping them keep pace with inflation, with what is happening in our economy and with what is happening globally with the cost of living. You do not hear too much about the cost of living from the Liberals anymore. They have given up on that. 'Cost of living' sounds like a three-word slogan to me, but it was just something they used to talk about in opposition. Now it has gone out the door.

Labor actually has a plan to look after people and to ensure the sustainability of our economy and sustainability across the forward estimates, a plan to get on the road back to a surplus in a reasonable amount of time—not the Joe Hockey promise, which was going to be in the first 12 months and every single year after that. That is just one example from their litany of lies, which also included the promise that there would be a million new jobs created in five years. You are a long way short of that. Shame on you. (Time expired)

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