Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia I ask: what is a measly $300 million among friends? What is $300 million? The subtlety of the language betrays the core belief, and here it is: the government's willingness to enter into an arrangement to forgo $300 million in tax revenue in order to benefit their political allies. Senator Gallacher's stated belief is exposed in the use of the word 'forgo'. It is not the government's money by right, it is not tax revenue by right—that language simply reflects the government's air of entitlement, the Senate's air of entitlement. It reflects the air of entitlement of both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party. This is a betrayal of the underlying intent behind the Labor Party and the Liberal Party in governing this country for the last seven decades. It also brings to mind the corruption of language around tax. We have so-called savings measures that are really tax increases. This reminds us of Stalin's abuse of language and the marshalling of language as a force to suppress people.

As I understand it, the government has three roles. They are to protect life, to protect property and to protect freedom. Yet it seems to me that the solution within the Labor and the Greens parties is to increase tax rates, and the solutions in the Liberal and National parties focus on cutting spending. So it is either cut spending or raise revenue. But there is a third alternative—lowering tax rates. That has been repeatedly proven successful, in Reagan's America, Thatcher's Britain and many other places throughout history. In fact, it was also proven successful in John F Kennedy's America, in the 1960s,

It is absurd and reckless spending that now drives government. There is no accountability in this chamber or in the House of Representatives, because we rarely see cost-benefit analyses on major spending items, let alone trivial spending items. Think of the national broadband network, the NBN—worked out on the back of a beer coaster in the middle of a flight by then Prime Minister Rudd and Minister Conroy—$50 billion, $60 billion, $70 billion? How much? When will it end? We do not know. What will the service speed be? We do not know. There is no business case, and we see the frittering away of our money.

Then we think about climate policies, with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation costing $10 billion—but none of the climate policies have a cost-benefit analysis, and these policies are costing tens of billions of dollars. It is not only the tens of billions of dollars spent, and wasted, but there is also disruption to industry and disruption to productivity, which ultimately costs everyone. We recently have seen the backpackers tax—and apparently someone on the staff of the Treasurer has said there was no cost-benefit analysis done. Now we have farmers being disrupted because of the threat of people not coming to Australia to pick their fruit. No cost-benefit analysis, and suddenly people are wondering why we are $356 million in debt. That is only 1,000 times $300 million—and what is $300 million among friends? Among friends, $300 million leads to a mentality that just wastes money, just fritters it away, with no accountability, and pretty soon that measly $300 million becomes $356 billion. That is our taxpayers' money.

Then we see our tax system based on raising revenue by cutting things like payrolls, things like employment—because we all know that when we tax something we cut its use. Payrolls are taxed—why? Employment is taxed through PAYE tax—why? The request from employees to have more money in take-home pay leads to very high gross income, which puts people out of work. So what is $300 million among friends? It is thousands of jobs and inefficiencies, and instead of people being servants of government we need to get back to governments serving people. Let us make Australia great again for everyone, with comprehensive tax reform. (Time expired)