James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Pardon me, Deputy Speaker. What this legislation does is increases tax for some Australians, and, instead of cutting government expenditure or wearing it through the budget process, what you're doing is saying, 'To give some Australians a tax cut, we're going to go and bludgeon some others.' The ones Labor love bludgeoning are the successful ones. The previous speaker made the point and said with pride that this is a policy that expands the progressivism of our tax system and goes and takes money from wealthy Australians to fund a tax cut for other Australians.

So I'm not going to vote against tax relief for any Australian—never, ever—but what we will be doing is going to the next election with a debate and a policy position that is very different to what this government is doing, which is saying, 'To give tax cuts to some Australians, we're going to ratchet taxes up on other Australians.' We will find out at the next election what the Australian people think of this approach.

Firstly, the fraud: the Labor Party went to the people and made a solemn commitment and then broke it after the election. I think a lot of Australians will wonder what that means for other promises that the Labor Party might take to the next election. We've just had the previous speaker give the hilarious Keynes quote, saying, 'Well, when the facts change, I change my position.' We can apply that now to absolutely every election policy and every election promise that this government takes to the next election. It's actually being used in speeches in the parliament—with five people in here, I might add—which is great content for election campaigns and for billboards and brochures. A member of the government is bragging about the fact that, for any policies that they have and any promises that they take to an election, if the facts change and if something changes—

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