John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to have spoken for some time but cannot because debate in this place is restricted, thanks to the government and the Greens. Once again we are on about tax—taxing the private sector, undermining the confidence of overseas investors by demonstrating that there is sovereign risk attached to this country and changing the rules. We are moving the goalposts halfway through the game.

When will this government learn that it is the private sector that drives our nation's wealth? That is where the money comes from; governments do not have money. The government is doing its best to cripple the very sector that drives our nation's wealth. I am proudly wearing a badge that says, 'I love small business.' Here is another tax that has been brought into this place simply because of the mess those opposite have made. Schedule 4 has been thrown out—thank goodness!—but those opposite want to make it retrospective. It is unbelievable to see how much of a mess they can make. They were warned by business. The business world warned the government in 2010 that this would blow up in their face, and it has. Once again the business world was right. Of course we do not expect the government to understand business—most of them come from the trade union movement; most of them have never run a business.