Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer the Treasurer to the statement again by the minister for immigration yesterday—that PEFO is where the officials tell the truth about what the budget really is. Is it not the case that since PEFO, which told the truth about the budget, the Treasurer has doubled the budget deficit, including his decision to give a $700-million tax break to multinational companies to provide an excuse for his budget of broken promises?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not at all. The legacy left by the member for McMahon was 92 announced but unlegislated taxation changes—he did not break the tonne. You think he should be proud of his record. On his website he does not even refer to the fact that he was Treasurer. I would be blanking it out as well. It is the modern equivalent of liquid paper.

The fact is, of those 92, including the ones announced by the member for Lilley in last year's budget, Treasury provided advice that they simply could not be legislated. They did not know how to actually draft the legislation because the policy intent came out of the then Treasurer's office without any capacity to actually draft the changes to the taxation laws to get the money that they claimed they were going to get. There were 92 announced but unlegislated taxation changes. In relation to what he claims to be companies moving money offshore, the fact is, again, the advice was that Treasury could not deliver the policy intent because the legislation was going to be drafted with massive unintended consequences for Australian companies that wanted to expand offshore.

We want Australian companies to expand offshore. We want them to be more profitable and successful in the global market place. It came down to the fact that the Labor Party did not understand taxation policy. That is why they had eight different versions of the mining tax, a mining tax that was just 97 per cent short of original revenue estimations, a mining tax that actually hits a new benchmark in taxation policy—not even the Greeks got there—in announcing a tax that raises no money. But the Labor Party did and that is what we were left with.

The legacy of the pre-election fiscal outlook is there are all these spiders buried in the closets around Canberra. Why? Because Labor did not have any policy; they did not understand how to govern. And that was reflected in the fact that they were constantly changing leaders, they were constantly changing ministers and they were constantly changing policies.

I say again, we were elected to clean up the mess that Labor left and we are going to do it.