Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The shadow Treasurer overlooks the fact that the government does not have a proposal to increase the GST. He would no doubt like the government to do so; he would no doubt like to write the government's policies. As he lies awake at night dreaming of a glorious future in a Shorten government, no doubt he imagines what policies he would like us to undertake. But the honourable member would be better off focusing on what his proposals are to deal with the challenges that we face. What is the Labor Party's proposal to deal with the massive deficit that they left us—the tens of billions of dollars worth of unfunded commitments? How do they propose to address the fact that we left them in 2007 with cash in the bank and they left us with a massive and growing deficit—with a structural deficit? How does he explain his own distinguished track record in stifling innovation with the employee share schemes legislation, which basically abolished employee share schemes—something that even he now acknowledges was a mistaken effort?

The honourable member should be well aware of this, and I will repeat what I said in response to the member for Griffith's question earlier: there are many, many proposals for tax reform being debated at the moment. They are being advocated and canvassed by people across the board—by Labor people, by Liberals, by academics, by interest groups. That is good, because if and when a government proposes substantial reforms it needs to do at least two things—

Mr Champion interjecting—

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