Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am inspired by the previous speakers. I too want to express why I would also vote for this disallowance motion. We will be disallowing it, just as we disallowed the legislation. Senator Boswell summed it up in just one sentence before he sat down: ‘If ever there was a piece of legislation to date of this six-month-old government that ought to be rejected and disallowed, it is this,’ because this legislation and the regulation accompanying it, as the previous speakers have said, was introduced in February. Just picture that: three months in government, their first sitting of parliament and the Labor government have reverted to kind. We should have seen the signals then—in fact, we did because we rejected the legislation—when, in the first session of parliament after being elected, the Labor government lifted the taxes. They went straight to the pockets of the most vulnerable. This was the time they were raging at their highest, at their peak against the previous government’s so-called expenditure and the inflationary pressures. This was the time that they were wringing their hands for the working family, the working Australian, the ordinary Australian. It was in February that they tried to bring in these increased taxes. This was the time that they were wringing their hands with regard to the increased interest rates. Three months in, the first session back, they introduced a new tax upon the truck drivers of Australia: people whom two senators across there—perhaps even the third one—all once represented. They introduced a new tax.

Since the government handed down the budget yesterday, we know it is very much to their liking. It is old Labor all over again. They have not only increased the taxes on diesel but, I stress, they have also indexed them. In yesterday’s budget they increased the taxes on alcohol, energy, computers, software, fringe benefits, so-called luxury cars, passports, visa applications and the costs of private health. Labor, reverting to kind, have been a high-taxing government in their first six months. But the extraordinary thing is that, within their first two months, they decided to slug truck drivers and the trucking industry of Australia and index the taxes. To what advantage? As the previous speakers have pointed out quite clearly, the initial costs will be absorbed by the 360,000 trucks on our roads that transport some 75 per cent of Australian products. But, of course, there will be a knock-on effect for consumers. What was the point of the Labor Party establishing a grocery inquiry, when all the time they could not restrain the knock-on effect that will increase grocery prices and have an inflationary effect and even have an effect on interest rates? Within their first few months of government they have implemented an inflationary policy against the very people they claim to represent. Do they think the independent truck drivers are rich? Are they above the threshold?

This is really saying something, but, even after reading the devil in the detail in yesterday’s budget, I believe this is probably the worst piece of legislation this government have yet put forward, because in every single way it betrays their public spin. The government gloss things over. It is not for nothing that we call them spin merchants, fakes, hypocrites and phoneys; we have got the evidence right here in this legislation. Within two months of taking government they have not only increased taxes but also increased the most inflationary taxes upon the very people over whom they wring their hands. The knock-on effect, we know, is going to go right to the supermarket shelf. How could it not? We have 365,000 trucks on the road, driven by independent truck drivers and small business people, which cart 75 per cent of the produce. Of course, this affects the rural sector as much as anyone else. It affects not just the working family and the small business person, the truck driver; it affects the rural sector too—the regional areas that depend so much on the truck drivers who deliver the groceries.

What is the point and the effect of this? The federal government caved in to their state colleagues. That is their idea of ending the blame game. The end point of the blame game is that none of them will blame each other for increasing taxes. There is no assurance of, and no guarantee about, the revenue, which in the first year was $80 million but is now indexed. Probably not a cent of it will go to state roads. That is the state governments’ form; we know that. There is no assurance that this new tax and the indexation of diesel will go towards state roads. You can pretty much be assured that it will not, given the state governments’ form.

The bottom line of the government was not so much yesterday, when we saw, with their increased taxes, the old Labor coming to the fore. It was spotted in February this year, when they tried to introduce this disgraceful legislation—and they are still clinging onto it now. I register my objection and my support for the disallowance motion.

Question agreed to.