Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, for the reason that there wasn't a lot of substance. The main portion of it was devoted to a convoluted metaphor about helium. It's obviously a line that he'd workshopped long and hard in the mirror. He's had a lot of time on the bench to be able to practise it, though he still didn't quite nail the delivery. But I thought to myself: 'Why would he spend so much time talking about helium? How is he so familiar with it?' It's because he spends so much of his time acting the clown so often in this place, because only a clown would bring on a debate about the cost of living when he sits on that side of the chamber and spends his entire time trying to take more taxes out of the pockets of everyday Australians—$387 billion worth of extra taxes out of the pockets. And you've got on that side of the chamber, sitting right there, two of the major architects of it—the shadow Treasurer and the member for McMahon. If we just had the former Leader of the Opposition, we'd have a full set of the people behind the $387 billion worth of taxes to take out of the pockets of everyday Australians. I'm pleased the member for McMahon is here because he likes to be reminded of his lines at the last election—his excellent advice that he gave to everyday Australians, which I hope he will repeat this time, which is: 'If you don't like Labor Party policy, don't vote for it.' And didn't they just! Didn't they just not vote for it! They were very happy to reject the Labor Party's $387 billion worth of taxes, which would have been such an incredible impost on the costs of living for everyday families.

On this side of the chamber, we have lowered taxes, we've provided structural reform to make small businesses keep more of what they earn, we've put more medicines on the PBS, we've helped with out-of-pocket costs on X-rays and other diagnostic scans, we've helped make child care more affordable, and we've supported more Australians to get into their first home, all while facing a global pandemic.

It's interesting that, in the same 48 hours that the Treasurer and the Morrison government were able to release new ATO modelling showing that small businesses, at a time of great need and at a time when they need to get on with the economic recovery and are reopening their doors, have an extra $5 billion in their pockets of their own money to spend on their business, hire new employees and get new equipment so that they can gear up and help with the economic recovery, we had the shadow Treasurer on his beloved ABC saying he was still considering the full suite of tax policies that he could put on the Australian people. Such are their secret policies over there. They won't let us know what they are, and they won't let the Australian people know what their policies are. Such are they that, right up until the election, they will need to consider in great detail the full suite of taxes that they're going to impose on the Australian people. As the Prime Minister has said, the only thing more scary than knowing the new taxes that Labor is going to impose on the Australian people is not knowing them, because they like to keep their policies secret.

It was just yesterday that we were hearing from other Labor members about the great moral challenge of climate change. Yet here they are sitting on the other side of the chamber, refusing to detail what their policy is. They won't detail their policy on new taxes. They won't detail their policy on the economic recovery. It's clear. It's clear that they are simply trying to trip and fall into government on the basis that they won't tell the Australian people what they'll do; they'll tell the Australian people as little as possible and hope they just trip and fall into government. We won't allow it to happen. We will simply put to the Australian people that they will always have lower taxes under a Liberal-National coalition government. They will always have a stronger economy under a Liberal-National coalition government than under the Labor members opposite.

The Labor members opposite simply cannot be trusted to run an economy. They simply cannot be trusted with your money because they think it's their money. They want to take as much money out of your pockets as possible because they believe they can tell you how to spend it better. On this side of the chamber, we believe in empowering Australian families to spend their money in the best way that suits them and their families and suits the Australian economy.

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