Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is great to rise to talk on this MPI. You want to talk about inequality and division in Australia. That is what Labor is all about. They thrive on division. This MPI is totally disgraceful. They try to create division everywhere they go. At the last election, they created division by telling porky pies about Medicare and other issues. The member for Hindmarsh's contribution did not line up with what they were saying at the federal election. He was talking about $50 billion tax cuts to the richest Australians, but during the election they said it was $50 billion tax cuts to overseas investors. You might remember that, Member for Hindmarsh. You need to listen to your leader, champ, because at the end of the day he was saying that tax cuts would deliver dividends to overseas investors. On that side of the House they do not want to talk about small businesses. They do not want to help businesses above $2 million, above $10 million, above $50 million. Every single one of them spoke only about billion-dollar companies. But the jobs growth is in those small and middle companies as well.

We heard from the Leader of the Opposition. He talks about university costs as though somehow they are going up, when the government pays 60 per cent of them. We have been left with this massive debt from Labor. Do you think it is in the government's best interests for university costs to go up, when we are paying 60 per cent? Their argument is void. It is defunct. We saw the Leader of the Opposition talk about saving Medicare, yet at the same time health funding has gone up in this country. It continues to go up. It is the same with education funding. School principals and members of the gallery would have thought, based on the Labor Party's arguments, that somehow, when the coalition got in, education funding was going to go down, but it has actually doubled in the last few years. It has doubled and it is continuing to go up and it will continue to go up by a few per cent every year. How do you think we pay for that? It is through income tax. It is through company tax from businesses. You talk about company tax cuts. If the member for Hindmarsh understood the way it worked: if you lower company tax and a shareholder takes an investment, they pay it through income tax anyway. You need to think about that.

But division in this country has never been higher when it comes to the Labor Party. The Leader of the Opposition spoke about the member for Lilley and how he saved us during the GFC. He failed to mention that there were billions of dollars in the bank and no debt. But what did the member for Lilley and others continue to do? They continued to increase income tax. And the members for Shortland and Newcastle are right: they did raise the tax-free threshold to $18,000. But at the same time, they put it up for middle- and high-income earners—once again, a class-warfare and divisive act.

The member for Lilley introduced a luxury car tax, as though somehow that would tax the rich more. But what did it do? It hit everyone who drove a LandCruiser. They continue to slash superannuation contributions. They have this divisive debate about employees versus employers. They talk about foreign workers versus Australian workers. They want to give tax cuts to backpackers. They want to give it a rate of 10 per cent, as though 81 per cent of take-home pay for foreign workers and backpackers is not acceptable. I would think it was pretty good if I could get 81 per cent of my take-home pay and was paying 19 per cent tax. But what do they want to do? They want a rate of 10 per cent, and some divisive rhetoric, when most of them do not even represent country areas.

Look at the same-sex marriage plebiscite. They divide the nation in relation to same-sex marriage: those people who support same-sex marriage and those people who do not. The poor old member for Blair has changed his position on this issue. He was bullied into it by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. He said for years—he has gone to all the churches in the area—'I don't support same-sex marriage.' And now he does. They are a divisive, angry bunch on the other side of the House. If I had a dollar for every time the member for Lilley and the Leader of the Opposition mentioned 'inclusive prosperity' and 'trickle-down economics', I would be a millionaire. Yet the member for Lilley says today in his own article that thankfully in Australia we have not gone down the American road of a hollowed out middle class and an army of working poor. They come up with all these great analogies that draw in their base, but they have no practical solution. And look at multinational tax avoidance. They voted against it. What a joke. (Time expired)

Mr Hill interjecting—

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