Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Only one flowed out of the royal commission, as my friend reminds me. But it took $78 million for that one. Anyway, we've lost the board of AMP. We have a financial system in debacle, a financial system which has been protected by those opposite, who withdrew the very protections we put in place for people so that financial advisers would act in the best interests of clients. One of the first actions of the government opposite was to withdraw that. What! These are the people who are now saying, 'We want you to trust us with our fifth budget because we are all about fairness for Australian people.' No wonder people are starting to think, 'When they talk about fairness, let's see what their track record is.' I've got to say it's pretty dismal.

Anyone in this joint must think that it is our absolute honour to be here. Very few people get to represent their community in the federal parliament. When you think in those terms, you must think the Australian people deserve better than what's being offered by this government. They deserve better than to be told that what's in your interests is to give the top end of town a lift at the expense of everybody else. A modest tax cut, if it's affordable, is the right thing to do. But you don't give with one hand and take with the other.

I have just one little piece of advice for those opposite: if you can't afford to give an $80 billion tax cut to business—and I accept that you can't—simply don't do it. You wouldn't do this in your household economy. You wouldn't say, 'Look, I'd like to buy that new car but I can't afford it so let's just add it to the mortgage.' If you can't afford it, don't do it. Don't do it at the expense of working families, at the expense of pensioners, and don't do it at the expense of all those people who put their blood, sweat and tears in, who are raising families and who want the best outcome for them. And by the way, we need that $80 billion for our future.

The cutting of $17 billion out of education is ridiculous. Any investment in education is not a line item. It's not something you just say, 'This is what we're doing in our budget, how we're going to save money.' An investment in education is an investment in our future. It's an investment in our prosperity. It's an investment in our nation. It's not just a line item in the 2018 budget. And $17 billion is almost exactly the amount of money the banks are going to get, a tax cut of $17 billion as a reward for their hard effort over the last 12 months. The royal commission will no doubt now discover more and more things. I know those opposite didn't want the royal commissioner to extend the terms of reference but they might be stuck with them now, because the Australian people are getting more and more concerned about what they're seeing is happening in their financial institutions. By the way, over the last period of 12 months, those banks made something in the vicinity of $34 billion in straight-out profit.

See this speech in context