Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Tax Laws Amendment (Luxury Car Tax) Bill 2008 and the amendments. Here we are in the middle of what is one of the unprecedented financial crises of the world and we have a government moving to inoculate our economy from the worst aspects of this crisis. And what do we have from the opposition? We have the opposition trying to destroy the budget surplus. It is absolutely essential and in the national interest that this budget is passed in the Senate and that the various aspects of the budget go through to inoculate this country against this international financial crisis.

This is another political stunt from the opposition. They are politically and economically incompetent on this issue. It brings my mind back to what was said about the Liberal Party by the Liberal Party when they were in power, and that was that the Liberal Party were mean and tricky. Well, here we are—the mean and tricky Liberal Party at it again. They are trying to give pensioners false hope. They are trying to destroy the budget. They are trying to make sure that they do everything they possibly can to destroy an economically responsible approach from the Labor Party.

The luxury car tax was first introduced on 1 July 2000. It was to replace the 33 per cent wholesale sales tax that applied to luxury cars before the introduction of the GST. Only six per cent of Australian vehicles will be caught in the luxury car tax. The government has listened to the concerns of the Greens, Senator Fielding and Senator Xenophon. This package deals with the issues never dealt with by the incompetent economic approach of the Liberal Party. This deals with appropriate changes to the luxury car tax that take into account checks and balances on both an environmental and a practical basis. It is something that the Liberals did not have the vision or the understanding to do when in government. The Howard government never dealt with any of these issues.

Members of the former Howard government go back to their usual argument, and that is fear and loathing—fear that jobs will be lost because of the luxury car tax. I have heard a lot of nonsense from other side since I have been here, but this is fear and loathing writ large by the Liberal Party. We have had people standing up and talking about the manufacturing industry, and I have had a look at what people have said in the past. I could not find Senator Abetz talking about the manufacturing industry in a decade. You never heard them talking about the manufacturing industry. We are here now with all this pious argument about the car industry being destroyed and jobs being lost. It is absolute errant nonsense from the other side. You had 11½ years to do something about the manufacturing industry, and what did you do? You did nothing. You stood back and you allowed the car industry to wither on the vine. You had no industry policy, no vision, no approach on the industry whatsoever.

In the Bracks inquiry, when there was an opportunity for the car industry to make submissions on any of these issues, none were made on the luxury car tax. There were no farmers running down there telling them that it would so bad if they could not buy their $90,000 four-wheel drives. My heart bleeds for these farmers in their $90,000, air-conditioned, leather-seated four-wheel drives. These are not the real farmers. You know these are not the real farmers of this country. They are not running around in their flash, leather-seated four-wheel drives as you are claiming.

Let me deal with the argument about jobs. In evidence to the Senate Standing Committee on Economics inquiry into the bills, David McCarthy of Mercedes Benz said that the luxury car tax increase makes Australian made cars below the threshold more competitive with imported models priced above the threshold. Indeed, this is apparently the view of the European Commission, which takes a very dim view of the luxury car tax. I say to the European Commission: so what! This is about ensuring that we have got proper taxation policy in this country. This is about making sure that those who can afford to pay can pay. And those friends of the Maserati drivers on the other side should really understand the issues here. Four-wheel drives are well below the luxury car tax threshold, and there would be many farmers who would be very happy with a car under the luxury car threshold that would do the business of the farming community and is not for those who are hanging off the industry, making huge profits at the expense of decent farmers in this country and driving around in their leather-seated, luxury four-wheel drives.

The opposition are adopting a belligerent, arrogant and destructive approach to the government’s budget. They have opposed the Medicare levy surcharge legislation, which would provide real relief to Australian working families. They have opposed the excise legislation and excise tariff amendments, which would ensure fairness in the taxation treatment of condensate. So on the one hand the ordinary working family in this country can get no tax relief from the Liberals—absolutely no tax relief—but, there you are, the Maserati drivers get looked after and BP, Chevron, BHP, Mitsui, Mitsubishi and Woodside Energy are looked after and are all very comfortable with the approach taken by the Liberals.

This is a situation that ordinary Australians will be appalled at when they dig under the rhetoric and nonsense being pursued by the Liberal Party—the errant nonsense, the rhetoric that means nothing other than that you have done nothing for 11½ years and you do not really care about the working families of this country. You do not care about the car workers of this country. I know a little bit about the car industry in this country, and for 11½ years the AMWU tried to get the Howard government to have a modern approach to the car industry that allowed it to develop for the future. But what did the Howard government do? It did absolutely nothing. It did nothing on the skill base for the industry, nothing on technology for the industry, nothing for research and development and nothing on innovation.

Those things are the real drivers of the car industry—and you have the hide to come into this place and tell us that you know what is good for the industry by opposing the luxury car tax. What a load of nonsense. Nothing displays your lack of understanding, your lack of caring and your lack of compassion for ordinary workers in this country than the nonsense that has been portrayed by the opposition during the last few days. This is an opposition that will do anything and say anything in support of what is a bizarre approach to taxation in this country, using fear tactics on ordinary workers out there who have already suffered from the Liberal Party’s incompetence on manufacturing. To now say to them: ‘We have been incompetent for 11½ years. We have done nothing for you for 11½ years, and if you let the Labor Party tax the Maserati drivers, the Lamborghini drivers, the Audi drivers and the BMW drivers then the industry will be under great stress and the industry will lose jobs,’ is an absolute nonsense.

For Senator Abetz to stand here and try and argue that he knows something about the car industry is an absolute joke. I do not know when the last time you were in a car plant was, but I would be happy to go down to a car plant with you and talk to some of the workers there about the real issues that they are worried about. They are worried about getting an industry policy that will save their jobs and they are worried about getting management systems and technology in place that will save their jobs for the future. They are so thankful that the Howard government was thrown out on its ear and that a government has come in with an industry minister prepared to listen to the workers in the industry and to develop a strategic policy that will build the industry for the future.

The car industry would not want to pay any tax if it could get away with it. Senator Abetz said in one of the Senate inquiries that we should pay no tax. I do not know how he gets that economic rationalist approach. It is one of the most stupid things I have ever heard from a supposed senior politician in all my time as an activist in public life. The car industry do not want to pay any tax. They are not the ones paying for public hospitals. They do not want to pay for education or for roads and they do not want to pay for infrastructure. Nor does the opposition want to allow this government to get its budget through to take this country forward on these issues.

Hypocrisy and fear is the hallmark of the Liberal Party in this place. I have never seen so much hypocrisy—standing up crying crocodile tears for farmers and their $90,000-odd air-conditioned four-wheel drives. Have you ever seen the like of it? They look after the Lamborghini drivers of this country. They look after the big end of town. They say, ‘Let’s not tax BP; let’s not tax Chevron.’ They let them get away with ripping our resources out and not paying appropriate tax. This is an opposition that have got absolutely no economic credibility in terms of industry policy and absolutely no credibility in terms of what they have been doing over the last few days.

This is a desperate opposition. They are desperate to try and do anything and say anything to give them some credibility with an Australian public who only recently threw them out of office for 11½ years of inaction on the big issues that count for the Australian public. Don’t come here telling us on this side about economic credentials when you set about trying to destroy our budget. Don’t come here lecturing us about the manufacturing industry. Don’t lecture us about the environment, because you were the most incompetent government with no vision. You left this country unprepared for the challenges that we are facing.