Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

And you would think the people on the other side of the chamber might have a bit of class and just accept the criticism and move on. But let us move on and deal with the substantive issue, which is around this rather pointless motion, which frankly makes a mockery of this chamber: the idea that a government should stand condemned for a falsified debate that the opposition is running because they seek to achieve political advantage.

The previous speaker spoke about how eventually a person might pay a consequence of a levy. Who else is going to? Who? There are only people who live in this society, in this country, in this economy. Of course a person is eventually going to pay the cost of a levy, a tax. Just about everything you do in this place imposes higher costs and higher levies, and eventually it is paid for by people. But you have a fictitious idea of who exists in our society. There are these people at the top end who you envy and you promote hatred towards because you cannot stand them for their success. Why do you not actually recognise that everybody in this society has a responsibility to carry the consequences, to share the burden equally, and to make sure that we all have an investment in the future of this country?

So the fictitious nature of this debate—this class envy that has been pushed out there by the opposition, for no benefit apart from the rhetorical arms which they throw out in this chamber—simply makes a mockery of this chamber. There are some home truths. The reality is that banks provide a useful service to the Australian community. Last time I checked, most people could not just afford to buy their own home without some assistance from the banks. So what do they do? They engage in a transaction.

Mr Champion interjecting—

Mr Hammond interjecting—

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