Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to be able to explain to the House and my constituents in the electorate of Bruce what impact the government's proposals have on my electorate, who will benefit from the changes proposed to taxation in this country in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Personal Income Tax Plan) Bill 2018, who wins, who loses, how my electorate and community may fare relative to other electorates, and how the various components of this very complex proposal, to be implemented over the next seven years, actually impact on people—and by 'impact' I don't mean inane anecdotes about alleged correspondence from people called Julie, Elizabeth, Bob and Sally; we never hear about any Mohammeds, Vikrams or people from non-English speaking backgrounds in these comparisons I hear from those opposite. I don't mean the inane anecdotes; I mean the grown-up distributional impacts in a longitudinal sense that you might expect if we're debating a bill to spend $140 billion. It seems like a reasonable kind of question, but I can't tell my electorate what this means. Indeed, no member of this parliament can honestly report back to their electorate what it means in terms of impacts for their community vis-a-vis other communities around the country, because it's actually impossible to do so from the information provided to the parliament. The government won't tell us.

The cost to the budget of this bill over the forward estimates is $13 billion, and the cost in the medium term, we're told, is $140 billion, but that's all we know about the impact. They're big numbers—kind of important, I would have thought. Australians, I would think, would expect us to do our jobs as parliamentarians, scrutinising legislation and proposals thoughtfully and looking at the impacts. It's not as if—despite some of the nonsense we heard at the end of the previous member's speech—the mob opposite have done a great job with the budget. The context for this $140 billion is important.

You used to hear about the 'debt and deficit disaster' and the 'debt trucks'. You don't hear much about that anymore. It's funny, because there was a debt and deficit disaster when Labor was in government, according to the now government, but they've made the budget worse, and you don't hear that. We now have the best global economic conditions for over a decade. Yet, despite that, net debt for this coming year is double what it was when the Liberals came to office. Gross debt has now crashed through half a trillion dollars on their watch, for the first time in Australia's history, and will remain well above half a trillion dollars every year for the next decade. Both types of debt, net debt and gross debt, are growing faster under the current government than under the previous Labor government, which had a global financial crisis to contend with.

I have to hand it to those opposite: they do have luck. If you looked back from the time of Federation to now and picked one decade where you'd just go, 'Wow, I'd really want to be in government in that decade,' you would have picked the decade of the Howard government. Our terms of trade were the best they've ever been. Revenue was pouring in faster than you could spend it. They do have luck.

We had a global financial crisis. We sorted that out. We responded to it. Now this government has the best economic conditions in a decade. Yet, despite that, the deficit is 6½ times bigger than it predicted in its first horror budget. We hear a lot about how you've got to live within your means, not much about the means to live, properly funding Medicare or schools, universities or infrastructure, preparing the nation for the future. But it's okay, despite all of this fiscal context, to run in here and try to rush through a bill that spends $140 billion, because the government's in political trouble and the vultures are circling for the Prime Minister.

They've tried everything else. We heard there was going to be adult government. I would have thought that adult government was introducing a tax bill and being able to explain what the cost, year by year, of the different measures would be. That would be grown-up government, to my mind. But not when you're in political trouble. You press the panic button. You rush in and go: 'Tax cuts, everyone! Tax cuts! Trust us. Stick with us for seven years. In seven years, you might get a bigger tax cut.' You'd think that even the worst of the boneheads opposite would agree with that fiscal context and that parliamentarians should be able to consider the detail and the impacts of legislation that shells out $140 billion. But, no, the government are hiding the truth from people, trying to con Australians and blackmail this parliament by rushing through this bill without proper scrutiny.

In my view, oppositions in a Westminster parliamentary system such as ours have two critical primary functions above all else. One is to properly scrutinise on behalf of the people we represent and on behalf of all Australians, doing our job as an opposition. Yes, we'd rather be over there. You change the country for the better through being in government—or at least we would. But your job as an opposition is to properly scrutinise what those people sitting over there, the government, put forward. You can't do that if you don't have the information. The other responsibility of an opposition, of course, is to propose alternatives so that, when we come to an election, there's a clear, costed, credible alternative for people to choose. I'm proud of the job we're doing on both fronts.

But we do need the information to do our job. You have to provide the information to the parliament, if you have any respect for the institution, so both sides can do their jobs. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer are unable, unwilling or deliberately hiding the facts and the figures. They simply will not admit the cost, year by year, of each of the measures. We asked them in question time—no answers. Senators have asked the Treasury this week for this information: a year-by-year breakdown of the tranches' individual components. We've also asked for a breakdown of the impact by gender and by electorate and for other important information so we can do our job.

The government, when you look at it, is a complete farce—there's one silly stunt after another. This is not adult government. What have you got to hide? What possible reasons could there be for not providing this information which is entirely normal and reasonable. It could be that you don't have it. This could be a big call—I'm going to say something nice—but, even I don't believe you're so incompetent that you'd rush in here trying to spend $140 billion—

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