Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The quotes in the same article by Peter Martin—which were direct quote—said that the tax commissioner was only able to adjust tax scales in accordance with enacted law. But he changed his position. That was the question I was asking you. You have said that was false, or that I was misrepresenting his position. So I will go away and see if I can find those direct quotes myself and let you know if I have misrepresented his position. But that was quoted in The Age and in The Sydney Morning Herald by Peter Martin, who, as you know, has been an economics correspondent in this place for a very long time.

I suppose we are not going to have time to finish this tonight, Senator Cormann, but it was only three weeks ago, in here, when the omnibus bill passed with the support of Labor, that we talked about budget repair and the budget deficit. That was only two weeks after the Prime Minister had said in the papers that budget repair and debt reduction were 'a moral challenge of our generation'. How is giving $4 billion in seemingly 'unguided missile' form, without any modelling to support it, to the highest income earners in this country—a coffee and a bite of a muffin every week—helping your case of budget repair? If you do not want to answer that in broad terms, I would be very interested in following up with you when time permits tomorrow the budget impact of this bill out beyond the forward estimates and whether you have done any 10-year forecasts.