Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do recall in 2012 the then member for North Sydney, the shadow Treasurer, saying that the coalition, upon being elected to government in 2013, would deliver a surplus in their first year and every year thereafter. I would have more luck finding the yowie—in Yowie Park in Kilcoy, actually—than finding a coalition budget surplus, that's for sure. The debt truck has become like a mythical creature. The debt truck is a bit like the yeti, the abominable snowman, or the Loch Ness monster. We are looking for the debt truck everywhere. Where is that debt truck they used to bring out?

One of the first acts of this government—this is why I'm so aggrieved—was to get rid of the debt ceiling, give $9 billion to the Reserve Bank and then deliver debt after debt after debt and deficit after deficit after deficit. Of course, they've doubled the deficit, and the debt has gone through half a trillion dollars. Never ever in the history of the Commonwealth of Australia have we had a government that's so extravagant and so wasteful and that has forced debt and deficit up. That's exactly what's happened. This is all at the same time as they want to give $143 billion away in personal income tax cuts.

Labor has a bigger and better and fairer arrangement when it comes to delivering tax cuts for 10 million Australians. Why? Unlike those opposite, I don't have to stand here and say I'm going to give $80 billion to big business and big banks. I've had nearly 200 mobile offices since the last federal election. I'm looking forward to getting to the Rosewood show in the next few days, the last country show of the season. I've been to Ipswich, Kilcoy, Lowood, Toogoolawah, Esk and Marburg, and no-one has come up to me and said, 'Shayne, I reckon you've got to give $17 billion in a tax cut to the big banks. No-one's come up to me and said that at any stage. I've been at the Ipswich show until nine at night, and no-one's done that. The irony of the government is that, at the same time as they're saying they want to put more money—$10 a week, effectively—into the hands of working- and middle-class families, they want to cut $77 a week from Australia's lowest paid workers. That's what they're wanting to do. And, of course, they want to give the Prime Minister a $7,000 tax cut every year.

As I travel around to places like Karana Downs, the Somerset region and Ipswich, people are telling me that they miss out on taking their kids to sport, to parks and to the movies because they have to work on weekends, and that's why they deserve penalty rates. Labor will support penalty rates. To many people across my electorate, these benefits are really important. They're a positive thing. They make the difference between whether they can pay the rent, pay their mortgage, pay for their kids' school excursions or even pay a power bill. For many of these workers, penalty rates are just the difference. They're not a luxury; they're a necessity. Under Labor, middle-class and working-class Australians will receive bigger tax refunds. In addition, Labor will support penalty rates. We will also support more funding for schools in my electorate of Blair and more funding for hospitals. Under Labor, four out of five taxpayers in Blair will see tax relief almost double that which the coalition government is offering. Over the next four years, working people across Australia, including in my electorate, earning less than $125,000 a year would be $928 a year better off under Labor.

The Turnbull government thinks that, as at 1 July 2024, someone on $40,000 a year should be paying the same rate as someone who's on $200,000 a year. That's a very low bar. That's not a progressive income tax system; that's flattening out the income tax system in this country. It's unfair. There will be members opposite who, like me, will find that 78 per cent of hardworking taxpayers in their electorate would be better off under Labor's tax refund for working Australians. In my home state—and your home state, Mr Deputy Speaker Buchholz—of Queensland, 1.986 million taxpayers will benefit under Labor's plan.

I want to say something about Senator Hanson in this area, because originally she came from Ipswich. She joined the Liberal Party and stood for preselection for Oxley back in 1996. She has paraded herself for most of the last 20 years as being someone who has supported battling people in Ipswich and West Moreton. She has supported the coalition 90 per cent of the time in every vote she has cast. One Nation have become a subfaction of the LNP in Queensland. Instinctively they vote with the coalition. They are not for working- and middle-class Australians. They're not for pensioners. They're not for battlers. They won't stand up for Queensland—they want to get a better deal for WA at the expense of Queensland. Senator Hanson has sold out her constituents through a deal with the Turnbull government to sell them a dud deal on income tax plans. Under this government, as I said, debt goes up, but where's the concern for small business, where she came from originally? She proposes a tax plan that allegedly gives $10 a week to working- and middle-class families but provides $80 billion to big businesses, with $17 billion going to the big banks. One Nation have failed people in Ipswich and South-East Queensland. They have simply sold out the values that they claimed that they support. I go and see them as they campaign around my electorate and elsewhere.

The PBO has analysed what the government is proposing to do, and has done, in terms of legislated changes. Certainly stage 3 of the plan—abolishing the 37 per cent tax bracket and increasing the threshold for the 32 per cent tax bracket from $120,000 to $200,000 from 1 July 2024—will overwhelmingly be enjoyed by men. Thirty billion dollars of the $41.6 billion in tax cuts at that stage flows to men. So much for equality of opportunity. There are 59,000 taxpayers in my electorate of Blair who will benefit more under Labor's plans. Only one per cent of people in Blair earn over $180,000 a year, compared to 13 per cent of people in the Prime Minister's electorate of Wentworth. Who is the Prime Minister really looking after? Not the people of Blair. The Grattan Institute analysis has found that, under the Turnbull government's tax cuts, 60 per cent of the annual reductions will go to the top 20 per cent of income earners. That's backed up by NATSEM, the Australia Institute and the ANU's Centre for Social Research and Methods.

Analysis after analysis shows that what the coalition government is doing is putting money in the hands of the wealthiest Australians, the biggest banks and the biggest businesses, at the expense of working- and middle-class Australians. Labor proposes to put money in the pockets of 10 million working- and middle-class Australians, and permanently. Every working Australian earning up to $125,000 a year would be better off under Labor than the coalition. And, as I say, 78 per cent of the taxpaying constituents in Blair would be better off under Labor's plan. I'll tell you what they want, Mr Deputy Speaker. As I go round to do my mobile offices at country shows, I hear that they want not to have to complain about the NBN—there is a 204 per cent increase in complaints under the NBN. They want a better NBN, a faster NBN. They want more hospital beds. They want a world-class education system. Instead, what the government's been handing them is a subpar national broadband network. And they're stripping money. Ipswich Hospital and West Moreton Health and Hospital Service are losing $4.61 million under this government, and Ipswich Hospital and the health service have jurisdiction over the Esk Hospital, so the Esk Hospital is losing $80,000 of that $4.61 million. This government is cutting health funding. They claimed that they would match it fifty-fifty. They're not matching it fifty-fifty with the states. Just as they abandoned that commitment to a surplus in their first year of office and every year thereafter, they've abandoned health funding. That's why I'm aggrieved. I'm aggrieved at a government that's failed the taxpayers of my electorate on NBN, health and hospital funding and infrastructure as well. I welcome, as I finish, the $4.75 million in funding that they put in the budget for the Cunningham Highway, but it's five years too late, and I call on the Queensland government to match the funding.