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

On 4 July 2000 then Prime Minister John Howard told the Australian people 'our rate is 10 per cent and it's staying at 10 per cent.' But over recent months there has been a drumbeat of coalition members calling for a 15 per cent GST. It will be okay, they say, because you are going to get compensation. Compensation? Not on your ScoMo, because the Treasurer says that if they raised the GST they would not increase the total tax burden. That means no-one on fixed incomes, no-one on family payments, no-one on pensions gets assistance. Does the Treasurer not understand that when he says he is not going to increase the tax burden that means no compensation? Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't—this is the very same Treasurer who, the government having received the Harper review eight months ago, today kicked off its central recommendation of an effects test to another review. That is how they do competition policy under the Abbott-Turnbull government, apparently—commission a review and then have another review about it. The same Treasurer is having a dummy spit over transparency. He is willing to put his own multinational tax plan on the backburner to stand up for secrecy for private companies. Perhaps this Treasurer is the weakest link of the government—but, let's face it, it's not a strong chain.

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