Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to remind the House who put this idea of an increase in the GST on the agenda: Mike Baird, Gladys Berejiklian, Joe Hockey, Andrew Robb, Dan Tehan, Scott Morrison. What do all these people have in common? They are members of the Liberal Party. It is you that put this idea of an increase in the GST on the agenda for national discourse again, not us. Our position is very clear—we are opposed to an increase in the GST. Why? Because every time a pensioner pays for their phone bill or their electricity bill or their gas bill they pay more; every time a mum buys new clothes or shoes for her kids she pays more; every time people go to the movies they pay more. The renter pays more every month on their rent. Every time a tradie fills up his ute or buys new steel-capped boots or tools, he pays more. That is what the Liberal Party want average working Australians to do to—they want them to pay more by increasing or broadening the GST.

At the same time, those opposite are not willing to tackle massive tax concessions in superannuation, they are not willing to increase transparency on the largest 1,000 companies in the country to make sure that they pay their fair share of tax, and they are not willing to tackle multinational profit shifting. When it comes to the GST, when it comes to tackling tax problems, this mob are a joke.

See this speech in context