Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

What an outrageous MPI put forward by the shadow Treasurer, the man who will be known for his black holes. Bowen's black hole on the eve of the last election worked out to be about $30 billion with an $18 billion deficit, and that turned into a $48 billion deficit because of the Bowen black hole. This week, again, we see that the Labor Party cannot add up rudimentary numbers—$19½ billion is how far wrong their costings were on tobacco excise. I know some people have referred to that as a 'rounding error' and in Labor Party terms it probably is a pretty small error. Nothing that those opposite say is taken seriously by the Australian people because the Australian know that they are the party who inherited the books in the black with money in the bank and, in six short years, they absolutely trashed this country's finances. What have they done for the last three years in opposition?

At every single opportunity they have tried to block our savings measures and our attempts to repair the mess they left us.

So, on the eve of the election, when Labor gets up and are foreshadowing $100 billion of tax increases, it is understandable that the Australian people are very, very frightened, because the extra $100 billion—it could be more; it could be $150 billion by next week, at the rate they are going—is not to be raised in order to retire their debt; it is not to be raised to reduce the interest bill that this country faces—$1 billion a month in interest. No, these taxes are to be raised just to chase ever more spending, because the Labor Party cannot say no to anybody—any group that comes, cap in hand. Particularly, paymasters in the union movement get paid. And who pays the price? It is the Australian people who pay the price. And who will pay the price for what is in in the budget reply speech of the Leader of the Opposition tomorrow night? I suspect it will be people in small business—the forgotten people, as far as the Labor Party are concerned.

Who could argue against tax cuts for people in small business? They pay the rent first, they pay the suppliers second, they pay their employees third and then, if there is anything over, they pay themselves. So, anything this government can do to help those in small business, we should do. For that reason alone I wholeheartedly, absolutely have the zeal necessary to argue for this budget. That is why I say that what the shadow Treasurer has put up today is consistent with his charlatan approach. He is a charlatan; he is a shyster, because he is the man who had a $30 billion black hole on the eve of the last election. I say, leave him there forever. He is a great successor to Swannie, the man who delivered four budget surpluses. I think a really good young staffer may have written that speech for him. Gee that was a good speech; we have got a lot of good material out of that over the past few years.

But where were those four budget surpluses? They never existed, because Labor cannot make the decisions that are necessary. They can never make a difficult decision. There is not one dollar that they will not spend, but we know that every dollar they spend is a dollar that they rip out of another Australian person's pocket. And I suspect that tomorrow night we will see ever more personal income tax increases, ever more small business taxes, ever more taxes on business more broadly. That is not the approach of this government, and it is not the high road to jobs and growth. As Margaret Thatcher said, at the end of the day socialists run out of other people's money to spend, and there is no more money for the Labor Party to forcibly remove from the Australian people's pockets.

We will be the people who defend those who want to get out, want to work hard, want to get ahead, want to invest. We will not increase capital gains tax by 50 per cent. Australia will have, in effect, the highest capital gains tax in the world if Labor is elected on 2 July, and, in effect, a capital gains tax rate of 70 per cent. We will not adopt that approach. We will stand with hardworking Australians. We are the party you can trust to run a strong economy, a strong budget, and ultimately that will be the foundation for the jobs growth we need in Australia to grasp all the opportunities for the future.

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