Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Special Minister of State (House)) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on these personal income tax changes proposed by the government in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Personal Income Tax Plan) Bill 2018. I think the first point that I would make is that the government can't be especially proud of what is supposed to be the centrepiece of their budget when they spend the short time that they're speaking about these bills devoted almost exclusively to the Labor Party. I mean, that really is a signal and a symbol of how those opposite go about these sorts of things. When the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services comes to the despatch box, it should be a triumphant moment. If they're actually proud of these tax changes they're proposing, it should be a moment of triumph; they should be prepared to speak about the policies and plans in this legislation that we're debating at the moment. Instead, we get the usual rubbish, frankly, about Labor's plan for tax reform. If they were proud of this package of bills, they wouldn't spend so much time talking about this side of the House.

The reason they don't speak about the merits or otherwise of their own legislation is that they know that the Australian people are onto them. The Australian people know that this government is trying to pull a big swiftie on the Australian people by trying to pretend all of a sudden that they've discovered that low- and middle-income earners in this country are under pressure. The Turnbull government, by proposing this quite modest tax relief for low- and middle-income earners, is hoping that that will buy some amnesia amongst the working people of this country. But the working people of this country know better. They know that the modest tax relief in these bills does not make up for penalty rates being cut, private health insurance going up, energy bills soaring while those opposite have their blues in the party room over the future of energy policy, pensions being cut, the energy supplement being cut and money being slashed from schools and hospitals. The Australian people are onto this government. They know that the modest tax relief being committed to in this legislation will not, does not and cannot make up for the chaos, the carnage and the cuts of the last five years and the four budgets which preceded this one.

If those opposite were truly committed to tax relief for low- and middle-income earners, they'd do what the member for McMahon is proposing in his amendment, which is to split the bill. If they genuinely wanted to help people on low and middle incomes in this country, they would split the bill. We on this side of the House have indicated that we are prepared to immediately support tax relief for working people—the 1 July 2018 changes. We have said for two weeks now—I have lost count the number of times I've said it, the member for McMahon has said it, the Leader of the Opposition has said it and everybody on our side has said it—that we are prepared to support those first stages of the tax relief in this legislation. Our message to those opposite in the government is: stop standing in the way of the tax relief that working Australians need and deserve. Stop holding the working people of this country hostage to your cynical political strategy in this parliament and your trickle-down economics.

It beggars belief for most reasonable-thinking people that this government is insisting that working people can't get tax relief in the near term unless we on this side of the House agree to an election—to a tax cut—

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