Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Hansard source

This government didn't invent income averaging. But the reason why the government sought to settle a matter was based on the announcement on 19 November last year, where the government arrived at the conclusion that the use of income averaging, a practice that had been going for 26 years, was not sufficient. As soon as the government reached the conclusion that it was not sufficient, despite 26 years of history, the government then sought to repay, as any government would. The fact that the use of income averaging went back to the Keating days means, frankly, that this government ended Labor's use of income averaging and, as part of that, commenced repaying Australians where an insufficient debt was raised because income averaged ATO data had been used for a quarter of a century.

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