Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thought Senator Rice was on the list before me but I am very happy to speak on this subject. As you know, Mr Acting Deputy President Gallacher, and as my colleagues know—I have made it clear to all of them—I am not in favour of the increase in excise. As I say, I have made my views very well known. I call this the Labor Party's tax increase. Why do I do that? Because if it was not for the Labor Party's mismanagement of our economy over a long period of time—the six years that they were in power—we would still be in surplus. Rather than increasing taxes, which, regrettably, this does, we would be cutting income tax, as was a feature of the last Liberal government—the Howard government—when, on a number of occasions, the actual income tax rate payable by ordinary Australians was cut. When you have $60 billion in the bank and when you are running annual surpluses, you are able to do that sort of thing. You are able to cut taxes.

The Labor Party came into government in 2007 with, as I said, $60 billion in the bank and an annual surplus of some $20 billion a year. So it was a pretty good situation when the Labor Party took control. But within six short years there was not one Labor surplus, despite promises we used to get from the Labor Treasurer, Mr Swan—does anyone remember him?—who, each budget year, would promise that there would be a surplus but who never delivered one. There were two Prime Ministers during this period, but neither of them was able to properly manage money. In the Labor Party, neither the Prime Minister nor the Treasurer could manage money. Rather than having $60 billion in credit and surpluses of $20 billion each year, the Labor Party put us in a situation whereby if nothing is done we will end up with a $600 billion deficit. This is what Labor did to us—$600 billion in debt. Work out the interest on that!

Already we are paying $33 million a day in interest to foreign lenders because of the Labor Party's incompetence. I ask: how many roads in Australia could you build with $33 million extra every day? I can tell you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that you would get a four-lane highway between where I live in Ayr in North Queensland and where my office is in Townsville in North Queensland. We could have a four-lane highway there if we had $33 million a day to spend on it. But we do not have that, because that $33 million each and every day that we are paying in interest goes to foreign lenders, not to road constructors in my part of the world.

That is why I call this fuel excise increase the Labor Party's new tax. It is the Labor Party's fuel increase, because I understand that Mr Hockey has to take extreme measures to try and address the debt and deficit left to him by the Labor Party.