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

As the shadow minister at the table points out, the opposition of a gag motion by the government is itself bizarre! But, in the context of what the government has been saying about the urgency of getting this bill to the Senate, it is amazing that they were not willing to take up Labor's constructive proposal to get it there quickly. But this sort of opportunistic, short-term approach perhaps should not surprise us, given the government's approach to long-term policy making.

Superannuation taxation concessions are rising in value at a rapid rate. We know that soon they will exceed the value of the age pension, and they are of concern to the secretary of the Treasury and to every serious economist in Australia—to, indeed, the Assistant Treasurer. But the Prime Minister is still saying that he does not want to deal with superannuation tax concessions, despite having put out a tax white paper one of whose questions is whether or not our current superannuation tax concessions approach is sustainable. Let us be clear: our superannuation tax concessions are not fair and they are not sustainable. The top one per cent of Australians get more superannuation tax concessions than the bottom 40 per cent of Australians.

We have a multinational tax package from this government which is not even costed. In Senate estimates yesterday, the Minister for Finance said: 'We do not have a credible figure for it.' Senator Dastyari said: 'You have not costed it?' The Minister for Finance said: 'Well, they are your words. What we have decided is—' Senator Dastyari: 'The question is: have you costed it?' Mathias Cormann: 'Well, the answer is: we have not, because we do not have the necessary information to credibly do that.' So what we have from this government is a multinational tax package whose elements, if you add them up, come to just $30 million. Thirty million dollars is less than one-sixtieth of what Labor's carefully costed multinational tax package would raise; indeed, a package which not only raises $2 billion—

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