Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

It strikes me that what we are getting here is a little bit more than the opposition bargained for because they are now being forced to reveal what their policies actually are, and that is taking benefits off people—some of the poorest people in this country and some of the most vulnerable people in this country. There is an attempt being made by those opposite to actually defend what is indefensible. You want to support the vested interests of the multimillionaires, but you want to impose higher taxes and charges on the poorest people in this country. Is that how you are going to balance the budget? Is that your intention, to actually make people who earn less than $18 thousand a year pay tax? Because that is the clear implication of the proposition that you are advancing here today.

We know that since the resources rent tax was announced, those opposite immediately did the bidding of their billionaire mates. From day one, they have said that they will not support what they call an 'investment-destroying and job-destroying' tax. Of course we know the reality, and the reality is very, very different. This is a tax that is justified, is fair and is reasonable, and the Australian public know that. They know that they have to share the benefits of the resources boom. They do know that we have to have a system that ensures that we are able to build a future with confidence, and that we have to have measures in place so that the ordinary people of this country do get the benefits of the enormous wealth that this country produces.

The alternative is very straightforward, of course. The alternative is that, essentially, you want to increase the taxes and the charges for those who are least able to afford it. What you are prepared to do is to say that you will cut back on school kids' bonuses and you will cut back on superannuation reforms that benefit working people across this country. You will go down in history as amongst the greatest wreckers.

And you are not interested in building. This is a country that aspires to something much, much better. This is a country that aspires to genuine progress. This is a country that has a right to aspire to those things, and this is a country that will not get any answers from those opposite on these matters. We know that those opposite are really in the business of ensuring that those least able to afford it will pay the highest. And those with vested interests, who are already very wealthy, will get the benefits of your support. That is the real nature of this debate. You are in the business of defending the millionaires and taking from the poorest in this country—of cutting social security benefits, of making people on low incomes pay more tax and reducing the benefits that come to their social wage through the education system and the health system. You are in the business of undermining the infrastructure of this country and destroying the prosperity of this nation; that is quite clear as a result of your approach to these issues.

How else? How else will you be able to fund the $70 billion-black hole that is now being created in terms of your own arrangements? We know that those who are on low incomes, those who are, of course, entitled to the support of the taxation system, will be right in the firing line—right in the firing line under a conservative government. What we do know is that Tony Abbott has not changed his spots one bit because the previous arrangements—