Susan Lamb (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think this is a truly outrageous motion. It's outrageous and it's insulting. By introducing this motion to the chamber the member for Forde is showing an absolute contempt for Australians. I know that people in places where I live, like Caboolture, Narangba, Bribie and Dakabin, see through a motion like this. They know where the government's priorities lie, and they're not fooled.

They know that when government talk about tax cuts they're only speaking for the top end of town—the rich and the multinational corporations. They're not speaking for them. They're not speaking for typical families just like them. If they were, they'd be saying something completely different. If they were speaking for them, they'd be talking about how people have been struggling for years and years. Electricity prices are out of control. Private health insurance premiums are not doing any better. They'd be talking about how they need to work harder for ordinary Australians. If the government were speaking for everyday Australians, they would be saying how it's a completely outrageous idea to increase the taxes of Australians earning less than $87,000 a year while they give millionaires and big businesses a handout. What they'd also be talking about is how unfair it is that wage growth has fallen so far behind inflation. What they'd be talking about is the rising cost of living.

Instead, the member for Forde and his government are shouting and screaming about how they want to cut the hard-earned pay of working Australians. They've been shouting and screaming so loudly that they haven't been listening to the countless Australians who are speaking up, calling on them to stop the cuts to things like penalty rates. In this motion that the member for Forde has presented here today he notes that, through legislation, the government want to ensure that middle-income earners aren't pushed into a higher tax bracket. Finally, we've found something that this government will succeed in: if you stop people from earning more, they won't move into a higher tax bracket. It's not a very traditional way of making someone pay fewer taxes, I admit that, but I see the logic. If you earn less income, you'll pay less income tax. If the government asked any regular Australian what they thought of this, they wouldn't get the response they would like to hear; they wouldn't hear resounding support or the jubilant cries of people dancing in the street. What they'd hear is, 'No.' And they'd hear it again and again.

I say to the member for Forde: what you should do is listen, because when you listen you hear things. What you'd hear Australians saying is what they really want: a fairer tax system. They want to see a government that cracks down on multinational companies avoiding paying their share. They want to see shifty tax loopholes that can be exploited by the top end of town closed down—unfair loopholes like income splitting through discretionary trusts or unlimited deductions for high-priced accountants to minimise your tax. The government would hear that regular Australians don't want $37 billion of their money subsidising property investors. They want to see that money going to health. They want to see that money going to education. The government would hear that, while both the government and its trusty old ally One Nation support throwing $65 billion of taxpayers' money at big business, the bulk of which will be sent overseas to foreign investors, it isn't such a good idea in the eyes of the public when people back home in communities like mine are struggling just to get by.

This government has spent years with their fingers in their ears, trying their hardest to avoid listening to the hard truths, trying to avoid hearing what regular Australians want. But, whether they want to hear it or not, they will hear soon enough. When Australia goes to the polls, whether it's this year or next, they will hear loud and clear. They'll hear what Australians want, and what they want is fairness. They want fairness that can only come from a courageous and imaginative government, and we know what that government is. It's a Labor government.

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