Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

What I find interesting about that interjection is the fact that Senator Cameron has the dignity to accept that he is a true socialist and he is a Bernie Sanders, whereas Senator Dastyari on the one hand wants to embrace it, but is not prepared to. He is a bit of a chameleon; we understand that. We recognise the fact that he likes to be a bit of an actor. We have seen him perform on the ABC stage in the theatre there. His props are sometimes wrong and sometimes he does not know whether he is Arthur or Martha, whether he is coming or going, whether he is a socialist or a free marketeer, whether he is Labor right or Labor left. He is everywhere. I have seen him coming up to almost anyone in this chamber. It is spurious. I would say to you, Madam Acting Deputy President, in this place people will respect you if you are your true self and if you do not pretend to be something that you are not. I have lived by that all my life, as you would probably know, and if I could give any unsolicited advice to the socialists, the wannabe socialists or the denialist socialists on the other side, I would say, 'Be yourself.' If Senator Dastyari were asking me this, I would say, 'Just be yourself—people might not like you for it, but you will win their respect.'

Having said that, they have failed, clearly, to adopt the Bernardi taxation plan of simplifying things, because from their point of view it is about controlling and influencing people and trying to coerce their behaviour. As I mentioned earlier, every notional saving—if only Hansard could pick up that I am putting 'savings' in air quotes—savings, for those on the other side, are bigger taxes. They are expenses for other people. That is the duality and the great hypocrisy of modern politics: they talk about savings but they are actually expenses. This is why the budget is never going to balance under those on the other side. What they put forward is a fraud. We need to allow individuals to make determinations about what they want to spend their money on, free of the influence or corralling of government. Let them choose the best type of child care for themselves by cutting the taxes and not having to subsidise it. It means not taking a dollar from someone, clipping the ticket in government and giving them back 90c or 50c or 40c in rebates. That only increases the size of government, and this is what this country cannot afford. This is a very hard word for me to say, as a conservative, but it is time for a radical rethink of how taxes are implemented in this country. If we do not, we will travel the path of other countries—that is, the reward for effort is gone and government gets bigger and bigger until it is no longer sustainable. We have seen it in Greece, we have seen it in Italy, we have seen it right through the European Union. We are seeing that America is struggling with debt problems and the polarisation of the community there. We want to avoid those issues in this country. The only way to do it is to shrink the size of government, to live within our means and to allow people the opportunity to make determinations, good and bad, and to live with the consequences, good and bad, of making their own decisions. That needs a radical rethink from those on that side of the chamber. But it is clear that those on this side of the chamber are starting to think seriously about how we can reset the tax system for the benefit of all Australians.