Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Not only not a small target, as my colleague points out, but no target whatsoever.

It is not even clear anymore that we have a budget problem. People will recall the rather hysterical and urgent commentary about a budget emergency that greeted the commencement of the Abbott government. Spending now, in the words of the Treasurer, Scott Morrison, is over 26 per cent, which is where it was at the height of the GFC. He said:

This is not something that we believe is sustainable and there are plenty of people out there who want to raise taxes and have a new idea for a tax every single day of the week.

I would say to the Treasurer: 'I would be grateful for new ideas,' because this government would be very lucky to have even a single new idea, let alone a new idea every single day of the week. We are not seeing the kinds of economic leadership promised by the current Prime Minister when he removed the last Prime Minister, calling at that time for renewed purpose in our economic debate.

What is the debate that we are having at the moment? We started out by saying that the urgent debate under the new Prime Minister Turnbull would be a debate around tax, and we were going to have a mature conversation around tax at which all options would be on the table. What has become obvious is that there was only ever really one option on the table and that was the GST, but it was the option that dare not speak its name, because they did not have the courage to go out and prosecute the case themselves. They did not have the courage to name the option that was in fact their preferred option. They left it to a whole range of third parties to roll out the ideas, which is not the way you lead an economic debate. And of course all the while, they were busily beavering away on secret modelling that nobody was ever allowed to see because this national conversation was to take place in the complete absence of data or facts. Of course when they really looked at it, what was there in the modelling was the thing which the Labor Party, which the opposition had been pointing out all along—that a GST would be a killer on economic growth. Not only would it be an unfair and regressive tax but it would be a tax that would actually hurt the economy.

So now where are we? We are back to square 1 because we have got no ideas on the table for the national economic conversation that is supposed to be taking place with all ideas on the table. So we do not have any changes to superannuation on the table despite the fact that the Labor Party, for at least a year, has had a concrete costed proposal to address the most unfair elements of the superannuation system that deliver benefits to the very top income earners in our economy.

We have no plans to deal with negative gearing or with capital gains tax. In fact, all we see is an attempt to mislead the debate by introducing the idea that this is a benefit that helps ordinary people when in fact the modelling by NATSEM, which Senator Smith ought to be aware of, demonstrates that the benefits from both negative gearing and capital gains tax go to the very top cohort of income earners in this country.

I would say this to the government: if there was ever a time to get your ideas on the table, it would be now in the lead up to the budget and not wait until— (Time expired).

Question agreed to.