Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, when it came to the crunch and Senator Cormann had to actually stand up in here and put his case without written notes in front of him, he could not sustain the distance.

I will deal with Senator Xenophon’s amendments and then I will come back to the economic vandalism being perpetrated. Firstly, the threshold that is proposed would prevent 100,000 Australians from receiving the tax cut they need and deserve. Those opposite have been demanding that we bring forward tax cuts. Here is one in front of them and they are denying it to Australians. Secondly, this threshold is based on the consumer price index. Labor is proposing indexing the threshold in line with wages growth. This makes sense. It is after all an income threshold. As such it should rise with income, not prices. Allowing it to rise with the CPI will soon land us back in exactly the same position we are in now, where the threshold may rise more slowly than people’s wages and become a tax trap. Is that what you over there support? So you actually want to create tax traps.