Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Isn't it ironic that the member for McMahon is in here again, spouting about unfair taxes. I am sure he knows more about unfair taxes than any other member of this parliament—maybe the member for Lilley knows about them as well. 'Taxes, taxes and more taxes' is a phrase I am almost certain headlines the Labor Party's national platform and constitution.

We sure did see some unfair taxes during those haunting Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. I am sure those on the other side have a very short memory when it comes to unfair taxes. Those are years tainted by exactly what the shadow Treasurer is claiming yet again here in the chamber. Perhaps he has forgotten it is 2017 and those days are behind. Perhaps he has wiped them from his memory. We can all breathe a sigh of relief that the government is now in the hands of the coalition, who have continued to deliver on our priorities and deliver on our promises.

It is the Labor Party that on one hand will tell the Australian people they support the bank levy, but then seem to walk in here every day spouting the big lines from the big banks and what Anna Bligh seems to give them the night before so they can stop the levy. In fact, Labor never seemed to support the concept of fairness; they simply supported whatever made the big business and union monies flow into their election campaigns, all the while telling everyday Australians that they were standing up for them.

I would like to take the House and members present on a brief walk down memory lane with regard to unfair taxes, particularly those imposed by those opposite when they were in government—

Mr Rick Wilson interjecting—

And their anti-Western Australian taxes. I see the member for O'Connor, from Western Australia. Let's start with the mining tax. We all remember what the mining tax did to the Western Australian economy. If we look back, it started its early phases with the minerals resource rent tax. It passed the House on 23 November 2011 and passed the Senate on 19 March 2012. Mr Speaker, can you believe a total of $22.5 billion was expected or proposed by those on that side to have been raised over the first four years of the tax, to be spent on pensions, tax cuts for small businesses—which went into the ether and they blamed us for that when it was their own fault—and infrastructure projects. There was a promise of $100 million to the Western Australian economy which never materialised either. In the May 2012 budget, the government said this tax would bring in $3 billion for the financial year. In October 2012, that figure was reduced to $2 billion. On 14 May 2013, it was announced that the receipts were expected to be—can you guess, member for O'Connor?—from $22.5 billion down to less than $200 million. How successful was that unfair tax that was imposed on the Western Australian economy and the Queensland economy by those opposite while they were in government?

Mr Perrett interjecting—

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