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

I appreciate that those opposite, particularly Senator Joyce, are very coy about their desire to introduce a big new tax but this government has an absolute commitment, as part of the Henry tax reforms—a commitment that we gave before the last election, which Senator Joyce referred to when he was asking his question—to keep taxation levels across the economy lower than those we inherited from those opposite: one of the biggest-spending, biggest-taxing governments in the history of Australia. It was bigger than in Gough Whitlam’s period—