David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Hansard source

I agree that the 2015 budget is unfair. It is unfair to future Australians and it is unfair to current taxpayers. It is unfair to future Australians because it buries them further in debt. Next financial year the Commonwealth government's liabilities will exceed its assets by $261 billion. That is $11,000 of net liabilities for every Australian—man, woman and child. Net debt to GDP will be 17.3 per cent of GDP. Since 1970 it has only been higher than that once—in 1995-96. That was Keating's last year as Prime Minister, and it brought on Howard's era where debt and deficit were eliminated. Unfortunately we see no sign of a concerted deficit reduction strategy from the Abbott government.

The projected surpluses in 2019-20 and beyond are too late and too small. Too late because we have four more years of getting deeper into debt. Too small because these surpluses will only whittle away at what will be a significant pile of debt. What is more, these paper-thin surpluses are not worth the paper they are written on. These distant and small surpluses would only be achieved if the Senate passed all of the government's policy-specific legislation, like the increase in the eligibility age for the age pension and the cuts to family tax benefits and higher education subsidies. The government has rejected my call for a surplus to be achieved immediately by putting spending cuts in the annual appropriation bills. These are bills that Labor will never block. These distant and small surpluses would only be achieved if Australia achieved the longest period of continuous economic growth in history. In fact, Australia would need to achieve growth rates of 3½ per cent over a number of years—a feat that is far from assured given our current antigrowth policies in areas like industrial relations. These distant and small surpluses would only be achieved if Commonwealth taxes rise to 23.9 per cent of GDP through unabated bracket creep.

The Australian public will not stand for this, and nor should they. Our top marginal personal income tax rates are already among the world's highest, and bracket creep will put more and more of the middle class into these brackets. The 23.9 per cent of GDP represents an extraordinarily high Commonwealth tax burden. In only four years, since 1970, have we endured a higher Commonwealth tax burden, and that was during the commodity price boom of the early 2000s when company tax collections were pouring in. Running deficits now means we are living the high life at the expense of current taxpayers and future generations. It is unfair in the extreme.