Russell Trood (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In better circumstances, Minister, in far more compelling circumstances I would venture. What about the question of the state responsibility here for insurance in relation to disaster relief? My own state, where much of the impact has occurred, did not have the insurance that was required. That was regrettable indeed. I think the argument has been made about the fact that the cost was going to be too great but it has been unpersuasive. Surely it is a fundamental responsibility of governments to protect against the kinds of exigencies that occurred on this occasion.

There remains the question about exemptions. Will it include visitors, voluntary contributions, ongoing assistance to family and friends? We note that this is an impost on individuals that companies or enterprises will not be paying. There are questions to be asked, not least the questions which arise about the deal that the government has done to secure passage of this legislation through the parliament. Mr Wilkie from the House of Representatives is said to have extracted a promise of something in the vicinity of $50 million for tertiary education for his vote in support of the legislation. Senator Fielding is said to have secured something in the vicinity of $500 million for aid for Victorian reconstruction efforts. Deals have been done which are costly, which increase the burden on the purse of the Commonwealth and which will increase the deficit just to get this piece of legislation through the parliament because, as it stood, it was unpersuasive. The case was weak and individuals had to be bought off to ensure that the legislation would be passed.

In summary, we abhor this piece of legislation. We recognise that the Commonwealth has a primary responsibility to respond to the challenges which are now before it in relation to flood reconstruction and disaster reconstruction more generally, but this piece of legislation is ill conceived. It is bad economic management. It is unfairly taxing a significant proportion of the Australian population. A much better solution overall would have been if the government had used this opportunity to cut unnecessary spending, of which there is a great deal in the budget—I failed to mention the NBN, which is always a useful candidate—retain core spending in areas where that was necessary and fold the response into the overall budget practice. If it had done that, we would have been much more willing to support this piece of legislation.