Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I really admire—constructive as ever—Senator Xenophon’s attempts to do the minister’s job when the minister, representing this Labor government which wants to whack another tax on the Australian people, is too arrogant to answer some legitimate questions. Senator Xenophon has, in his attempt to do the job for the government, added further complication to it.

I go back to the question. I am very well aware of the Senate committee report into this. It of course refers to a draft legislative instrument and talks about consultation. But we have got no idea what the final decision is. What we do know, though, is that the Prime Minister was well able to make an ad hoc decision when she was asked a question by journalists from the West Australian in relation to bushfire victims in Western Australia. It is a decision we support. We think this is a bad tax. We will oppose this tax. We do not think this tax should go ahead. We think that this should be properly managed through the normal budget process, which it easily could be. We think the government should re-prioritise its wasteful spending in other areas. However, if this tax is to become law then we think that people who have been impacted by natural disasters across Australia should be exempt from paying this tax. It does not make sense for the government, with one hand, to hand out taxpayer dollars to assist people who are in financial distress as a result of a natural disaster, and then to say, ‘We are going to take the money back from you because we are going to hit you with the flood tax—with an increase in your income tax.’

I am aware that the Senate Economics Legislation Committee has canvassed these issues during its deliberations and I am aware of the evidence that was given by Treasury. But the evidence given by Treasury, with all due respect, does not, until we are told otherwise by this government, represent government policy. At this stage all we have been told is, ‘We’ve got this draft list of people who may or may not end up in the final legislative instrument.’

I go back to what is currently on the Treasury website—unless, of course, Treasury has now removed this flood levy fact sheet—which says that those people who are going to be exempt are those who have ‘received an Australian government disaster recovery payment in relation to a flood event in 2010-11’. It says that those people will be exempt from the levy. That is very narrow. That is the advice on Treasury’s website as we speak.

We also have, as a second piece of commentary from the government, the statement from the Prime Minister’s spokesman to the West Australian newspaper to say that victims of the Kelmscott bushfire would also not have to pay the national flood levy. But as Senator Fisher previously outlined in the chamber—very eloquently, I might add—there is a whole series of people right across Australia who are impacted by natural disaster events and who are receiving from the Commonwealth government assistance in order to help them deal with the financial distress they have experienced. In Victoria there is natural disaster assistance available for 36 local government areas: Alpine, Ballarat, Benalla, Buloke, Campaspe, Central Goldfields, Gannawarra, Glenelg, Golden Plains, Greater Bendigo, Greater Geelong, Greater Shepparton, Hepburn, Hindmarsh, Horsham, Hume, Indigo, Loddon, Mansfield, Mildura, Mitchell, Moira, Mount Alexander, Moyne, Murrindindi, Northern Grampians, Pyrenees, Strathbogie, Swan Hill, Towong, Wangaratta, Warrnambool, Wodonga, Wyndham, Yarra Ranges and Yarriambiack. These are local government areas where people have been receiving natural disaster relief funding and the government has said nothing as to what the status is of Australians in those areas in terms of an exemption from the flood tax.

What about people in South Australia? Again, Senator Fisher made the point very eloquently about people in the areas of Clare, Gilbert Valleys, Loxton Waikerie, Mid Murray and The Barossa. What about people in Western Australia that were subject to a severe thunderstorm on 29 January 2011? They have received natural disaster relief funding, and there are 20 local government areas there: Beverley, Brookton, Cuballing, Cunderdin, Dalwallinu, Goomalling, Narrogin, Northam, Perenjori, Pingelly, Quairading Toodyay, Victoria Plains, Wagin, Wandering, West Arthur, Wickepin, Williams, Wongan Hills and York. In Tasmania, the minister’s own home state, 11 local government areas have been receiving natural disaster assistance from the federal government.