Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

And those opposite start arcing up. Of course, they can't arc up and say, 'No. We didn't do it.' They arc up and say, 'Oh, well, even though we said we weren't going to introduce new taxes and the fact is that we have introduced new taxes, there's nothing to see here.'

The Australian people are waking up to the government, and they're waking up in a cold sweat because all they're seeing from the government is that they're making the cost of your life in every area more expensive. They're taxing you where they can, they're adding to your cost of living where they can and they're adding to your cost of doing business where they can. It is cost, cost, cost, and there are no solutions whatsoever, especially when it comes to the cost of living. It's getting to the stage now where schools are having to feed children. It's getting to the stage now where small businesses are saying to me in my electorate, 'It's never been this bad. The Asian financial crisis and the GFC had nothing on what we're dealing with now.'

And people are waking up. They know. When it comes to wages, their real wages have gone down. When they go to the supermarket, they can buy about a quarter or a third less than they used to be able to buy. They get that realisation every single time they turn up to the supermarket. What is happening to their wages and its real capacity to purchase things is writ large for them there. I say to the government: enough with taxing; it is not what people need right now. If you can, start on the cost of living, deal with inflation, deal with the cost of doing business. That is what your key focus should be.

While we welcome the continuation of the work that we were doing in government when it comes to multinationals and making sure they pay their fair share—

A government member interjecting

I just hear an interjection and I've got to take it. Someone on the other side said, 'Oh, you've been asleep at the wheel.' We actually introduced this. You've taken two years to produce this. You haven't only been asleep at the wheel; you rolled your sleeping bag out, put some earmuffs on and went into a coma for two years.

Government members interjecting—

You've done nothing for two years. You've been in government for two years, and you've just introduced this. These are extraordinary interjections from those opposite. I would just focus on doing your job: making life easier for the Australian people and, especially, fixing the cost of living and the cost of doing business—and you don't do that with new taxes.

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