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

My question is to the Treasurer. I refer to his previous answer, in which he claimed the relevant figure that will be raised by the bank tax is $1.2 billion this year. If that is the case, why did the Prime Minister yesterday tell the House that the net revenue received by the Commonwealth shown in the fiscal balance impact is $1.6 billion? Why is this tax so poorly implemented? Why is this government so incompetent?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can someone get him a budget paper? It is pretty simple. The accrual figure in Budget Paper No. 2 2017-18 is $1.6 billion. It is an accrual figure! The figure that I just referred to was gross cash receipts of $1.2 billion in 2017-18. That is a gross cash figure!

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

You are moving the goalposts!

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, there is no movement of the goalposts! The shadow Treasurer has gone out to some accountants' picnic and thinks that somehow he has come back with some clever observation. All I know is that the shadow Treasurer is running the lines of the banks. How many bank executives have you met within the last couple of weeks? How many lunches have you been to with banks and with your former staff who work for the banks? How many of those has the shadow Treasurer been tucking his knees under the table with recently? He comes into this place as the grand champion of the big banks! When this shadow Treasurer was the Treasurer, he came up with a bank tax which taxed pensioners' bank accounts.

Mr Hill interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Bruce is warned!

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And do you know what he said? He said 100 per cent of that would be passed through to the bank depositors themselves.

When it comes to taxing the banks, all he could see were pensioners' bank accounts. But, on this side of the House, we have structured a levy which understands that we want to ensure that bank deposits held by ordinary Australians are not captured in this levy, as they were under the shadow Treasurer's levy. The levy has been structured to reflect that position. It is a fair levy. They say that they support it, but, I have to tell you, the way that they have been carrying on in this House shows that they have just become a puppet for the big banks.