Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Assistant Treasurer and Minister Assisting for Deregulation. How is the government delivering tax relief and new investment to strengthen the economy and help hardworking Australian families? How does this compare with other policies to raise taxes and cut vital services?

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Parramatta for her question. This government is determined to keep our economy strong into the future and to ensure that we are able to provide support to hardworking Australian families, like those families in the electorate of the member for Parramatta in Western Sydney. That is why we have already delivered $47 billion of income tax cuts in the time we have been in office. That means that someone on an income of $50,000 is paying $40 a week less in tax under this government than they were under the previous government. We have delivered $2 billion worth of tax relief to small businesses with the instant asset write-off. We are also delivering in services. We are investing in health and education services through our health reforms and our new investments in dental health, and also by delivering the schoolkids bonus. And we are determined to implement our national plan for school improvement.

These are the choices we have made as a Labor government, a government determined to run a tight budget and to take responsible savings measures. And what have we seen from those opposite? We heard from the member for Goldstein, in the Australian Financial Review just a few weeks ago, that he has a different approach to achieving savings. The member for Goldstein has said that he intends to save money by outsourcing education and health completely to the states. And haven't they been doing a good job of it! I am sure Australians all around the country are feeling very safe knowing that health and education would be completely in the hands of Premier O'Farrell and Premier Newman under a Liberal government.

It is no wonder that the member for Goldstein would be suggesting that. With their $70 billion black hole, he has already indicated that they will have to sack whole departments—entire government departments. The member for North Sydney is looking into his papers sheepishly over there. He is the one who went on breakfast television and confirmed a $70 billion black hole. Just think about it for a minute. Do you really think Campbell Newman and Barry O'Farrell are going to gratefully accept all this additional responsibility—the outsourcing of education and health policy—without expecting anything in return? We all know what they want in return. Premier O'Farrell was out there on the weekend telling us. They want those opposite to jack up the GST. We know that the GST was the tax you introduced right from day one. You always wanted to put it on every single item. You wanted it to be a big tax on everything. And now that you have all these state Liberal premier mates in power you are working in collaboration, wanting to come back and have a second crack at it, to work together to try to make the GST a tax on everything.