Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to obviously speak against this motion and follow on from the Assistant Minister to the Treasurer. I note, picking up on a theme that the Assistant Minister to the Treasurer went along with, that it has been a very ordinary two weeks for the shadow Assistant Treasurer. I watched David Speers completely tear him apart as he was unable to answer questions, but what the Assistant Minister to the Treasurer did not mention was his follow-up performance on the Peter Van Onselen's show, talking about 10 years of savings. But, when grilled repeatedly on how much of that was in the forward estimates, he could not answer the question. The shadow Assistant Treasurer is seriously standing here today raising an MPI that we have a failure on tax policy. He will present himself at the next election to the Australian people when he is quite clearly out of his depth and not on top of his brief. It was not just the fact that he rose to Churchillean heights and could not tell us what Bill Heffernan had said; it was that he was repeatedly asked, 'What over the next four years—the forward estimates—would you spend and would you save?'

As I was watching his inability to answer the question, my mind cast back to 2012 as a member of the public. I thought, 'I've heard this before.' The member for Lilley, whose right-hand man was the member for Rankin, I think, came up with the idea when things were spiralling out of control: 'Let's put things beyond the forward estimates so that we do not have to come up with the actual budget deficit, which, at the moment, is out of control.' They are trying to do the same thing again. They are seriously taking an approach they took to the last election and they were comprehensively thrown out on their backsides. They are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the Australian people and the people of Reid. It was reported—I will not comment on the party room—that I termed the phrase 'verbal gymnastics'. What they are doing is fiscal gymnastics. There is one thing I can assure those opposite: the Australian people—in fact, the people of Reid—do not like being treated like fools. They do not like being told that you can do things in years 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 and not being able to answer the question of how you will pay for it.

I watched in awe yesterday Simon Banks on David Speers' afternoon show saying, right before the member for Batman came on after him, that the $47 billion in tobacco excise over the next 10 years—and, by the way, we have had a $700 million write-down under our guys—looks like it will be out of whack by $7 billion to $8 billion. There he is, one of the Labor Party's top strategists, admitting that there is an $8 billion hole already and they have not even fired the starting gun. The member for Batman followed with Arthur Sinodinos and was torn apart because he could not answer the questions either about what was in the forward estimates and what was over the 10 years. But, on the $7 billion to $8 billion shortfall, the best he could come up with was, 'We've had this costed by the PBO,' yet they will not release any of it.

The people of Reid had enough of that lot over the last six-year period they were in charge. When things spiralled out of control, they looked to do things that were fiscally dodgy by putting them outside of the analysis reach of not only the Australian people but us, and left us with hand grenades. The NDIS will increase from $23 billion to $47 billion over the forward estimates. We have real challenges. We need a serious conversation on the nature and composition of our tax system. I unfortunately have operated in every jurisdiction of government in this country and paid truckloads of cash. I know the complexities of the system because I have spent my entire working life, prior to coming to this place, trying to navigate it. It is complex; it is complicated. In fact, I would argue it is set up to make small business people fail. Yet all you have from those opposite are plans to make it more complex and more burdensome. We need a serious conversation. We are an adult government. We are having it. The opposition opted out long ago. They can throw all the stones they want. They are big on rhetoric but short on facts. Every time the shadow Assistant Treasurer has stood in front of a camera recently has proved it.

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