Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on the reasons why the government’s policy to reduce the withholding tax is being unnecessarily delayed? What is being done to inform Australians about important budget measures to come into effect on 1 July?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. Our budget does strike the right balance between delivering for families and investing in the future. That is in stark contrast with what the opposition is up to in the Senate, where it is putting up its hands to vote for higher inflation and higher interest rates. Of course, there is a new development. It has decided to delay the introduction of the withholding tax. This is a real problem—and this has been identified by IFSA—because it may mean that this measure cannot be put in place in the next financial year. So this dramatic cut in the withholding tax, which will bring investment to this country, may not be able to be implemented for a year. This is another example of its economic vandalism. It simply beggars belief that the opposition wants to play politics with a measure as important as this.

As I said before, our budget is a responsible budget that delivers for working families because it has lots of benefits for working families. There are those out there who think it is a good budget. In fact, this morning I found on a website some support for our budget. It described the budget as:

… a responsible budget that delivers for working families and invests in the future by (1) funding the substantial $55 billion Working Families Support Package, beginning a new era of responsible long-term investment to strengthen our economy to fight inflation and to meet future challenges.

That is a glowing endorsement by any means. Whose website could this have been? It is a website that got a very substantial airing in a recent focus group. It is fantastic to see the glowing endorsement of our budget on the member for Wentworth’s website. He is promoting our budget on his website. If our budget is good enough for his website, surely it is good enough to pass the Senate. The member for Wentworth is two clicks away from responsible economic management. He ought to walk up to the Senate and get his colleagues to support our budget.