Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

It is no wonder that Labor members took themselves off the speakers list. They are embarrassed about the Labor 2013-14 Budget Savings (Measures No. 1) Bill 2014 and they are embarrassed about the fact that, through their obstructionist behaviour in the Senate, they are holding up their own bills to help repair the budget situation. The member for Melbourne Ports made a comment during the member for Ryan's excellent contribution to this debate. I do not think it would have been recorded in the Hansard but I will record it. He voiced his objections about the Greens. The member for Melbourne Ports does not like the Greens. He is probably a little more in favour of them than I, as a Nationals member, am. He knows full well just how obstructionist the Greens can be and the agenda that they are running. I will give the member for Melbourne Ports his due. He has scant regard for the Greens and their social agenda which is damaging to this nation.

The bill that we are debating tonight talks about Labor's 2013 budget policy of repealing the second round of carbon tax related personal income tax cuts which are due to start on 1 July. In opposition, we committed to keeping the first round of personal income tax cuts and all the associated pension and benefit increases—and they have been retained. We said prior to the September 2013 election that they would be retained and, indeed, they have been retained. We have also delivered further savings to Australian households by removing the carbon tax itself.

The carbon tax was that wonderful piece of public policy that the then Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced within months of being elected. I remember it well. We had the smiling, bearded member for Lyne standing behind her. He had grown a beard to hide his appearance in public because he was so embarrassed about the fact that Labor also had to get the Greens vote—and we also had the Independent member for New England. Julia Gillard realised that she needed the support of the crossbenchers, she needed the support of the Greens, to hold the numbers in the parliament. I suppose you can say fair enough, numbers is what politics is all about; you cannot govern if you do not have the necessary numbers. But you should not govern if you have to almost sell your soul to achieve the treasury bench. You should not govern if, to have the numbers, it means you have to give the independent crossbenchers or the Greens everything they want. And that is what we saw after the 2010 election. That is what we saw in early 2011, when Julia Gillard stood there at that infamous press conference and announced that there would be a carbon tax—after she had so famously said: 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.'

But the removal of the carbon tax is saving the typical Australian family $550 a year. That is a significant saving. We all know that the typical Australian family—indeed, any Australian family—is under cost-of-living pressures with maintaining family budgets, and it is not easy. Five hundred and fifty dollars is a big saving. But we know what Labor is going to do if Labor does get re-elected next year: they will reintroduce the clean energy or carbon tax—call it what you will. They will reintroduce that legislation. Goodness knows, we do not need that!

This bill implements a measure first announced by the Labor Party. In the member for Lilley's final budget—thank goodness it was his final budget!—when he handed it down on 14 May 2013, the former government deferred a second round of personal income tax, and that resulted in $1½ billion worth of savings over the then forward estimates. Due to the addition of two further years to the forward estimates since then, the measure is now worth $2.8 billion—I will repeat that: $2.8 billion—to the budget over the next four years.

The former government, the Labor government, never bothered to legislate this May 2013 budget measure. This was just one of 100 announced but unimplemented taxation measures left to us by Labor. It was like, as the Treasurer announced today, time bombs left in the cupboard for us. When we opened it, there they were.

Upon coming to government, we attempted to legislate this Labor measure as a matter of urgency. We had to do it, because we did have a crisis. We had a crisis of confidence in business. We had a budget emergency. There was so much despair and gloom about the situation that we were left. We all know there were accumulated deficits as far as the eye could see, with projected debt of $667 billion if we did not act. As such, this measure was introduced to the parliament twice, under the Clean Energy (Income Tax Rates and Other Amendments) Bill 2013 as part of the package of carbon tax repeal bills. However, Labor have now voted twice against this legislation—twice—which implements this budget repair measure, without outlining an alternative plan for it. That is the trouble we find with Labor. Even in the budget reply speech delivered by the member for Maribyrnong, the would be if he could be Prime Minister—

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