Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

There has not ever been, I think, a more important time for multinational companies to pay their fair share of tax than there is now. Among a number of reasons, there is the fact that, if we look at Australia in 2013, our net government debt at that time was $184 billion, but Australia's net government debt is now $317 billion. That is a net debt increase by $113 billion since the coalition came into office. You would think that, with that growing net debt accumulated by this government, it would act on multinational tax avoidance and it would drop this ridiculous policy position of giving company tax cuts. But, no, that is not the government's approach. It is happy to let that debt continue to scale right out of proportion. It is happy to let multinationals get away with paying the bare minimum amounts of tax, if not none at all. It is happy to give company tax cuts over the next 10 years in the hope of some fantasy of trickle-down economics, all because it wants to attack everyday Australians in this country—everyday Australians trying to make ends meet. That is this government's approach to trying to bring down debt. That is this government's approach to public policy.

What an absolute shame, and what an absolute shemozzle. We have already had here today, on Harmony Day, the government choosing section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act as the most important public policy issue that they want to prosecute on Harmony Day, a day that is all about everyone belonging. They want to water down our race-hate laws in this country rather than actually focusing on what is so important in this country right now, which is decent jobs, decent wages, decent education and health care. None of that is in the purview of the government. It is all about these kinds of strange issues that are led by the IPA or led by the conservatives that attack the very fabric of our nation, our multicultural society.

And now we have them attacking the very bread-and-butter workers of our country, hospitality workers. Some 30 per cent of Australian income earners are hospitality workers. They are in the bottom pay threshold in this country. With these changes that the government want to bring in to reduce penalty rates, they are the workers that will be most affected. Up to 700,000 Australians will receive a pay cut if these penalty rate changes go through, making them up to $4,000 worse off a year. If this is not a kind of nuanced Work Choices mark 2, I do not know what is. Of course, we need to also recognise that it is women that make up over 50 per cent of hospitality and retail workers. Penalty rates are not a luxury. Penalty rates are there for what they need to pay their bills and put food on the table—something that our Prime Minister, unfortunately, is completely out of touch with. I am sure he does not even know where his Medicare card is.

These are the issues that make this country so important and so successful as a nation: having decent pay and conditions and having our safety net for health care, Medicare. These are the bread-and-butter things, as I call them, that this government wants to attack, instead of attacking the taxes that should be paid by those massive companies that earn those massive profits each year, a lot of which end up going offshore and not staying in our country.

There was a time when we had a Treasurer who was Mr 'Budget Emergency'. He has now moved to Washington DC. He has gone and now we do not talk about debt. The government does not want to talk about debt. Why? Because it has escalated out of control. It no longer claims that it matters. It put a $50 billion corporate tax cut on the table when it went to the election, knowing full well the government's debt position since coming to office had increased by $113 billion.

Modelling done by Independent Economics says that the corporate tax cut is going to cost around $48.2 billion—slightly shy of $50 billion—and that its annual cost will be $8 billion a year. That is a massive hit to the government's budget and the government's coffers. So, of course, they are going after family tax benefit. Of course, they are going after Newstart allowance. Of course, they are going after penalty rates. How else are they going to pay for this massive $8 billion a year corporate tax cut? The ideology of this government astounds me. The fact that they can pick on everyday Australians in this way is abysmal. Yet that is what we have on the table.

Now, in some kind of pathetic attempt, the government are trying to address the issue of child care. Both sides agree that child care has got too unaffordable and it needs to be addressed. Instead of looking at child care as a policy issue on its own, no, this government want to ties it to family tax benefit. It says: 'Let's cut family tax benefit to pay for child care. Let's not touch the multinationals. Let's not touch the corporate tax rate policy that we have in place'—the $8 billion a year that they want to give to corporates—'Let's actually look at low-income Australians, families who are trying to make ends meet, and take a little bit of their money away from them. Take a little bit of money here, take a little bit of money there, a bit of penalty rates and a bit of family tax benefit.' They try and come up with a childcare policy in that way.

On top of that, what do we have? Scrapping the energy supplement is another one. Five weeks wait for Newstart allowance is another one—forcing young people to live off nothing for five weeks before they can access their income support. That is not the kind of Australia that Labor want people to live in. We believe in equality. We believe in fairness.

I thought it was a slightly bizarre slogan at the last election, nevertheless a slogan, that the Prime Minister chose to adopt. Remember 'Jobs and growth'? We heard it a million times. It was on billboards and the like. He tried the Abbott-style slogan approach with 'Jobs and growth'. Do we hear about 'Jobs and growth' anymore? No, we do not hear about it. We hear about cuts to penalty rates, watering down race hate laws and giving massive corporate tax cuts. That is all we hear about. We do not hear about jobs and growth. Whatever happened to that? it has gone out the window, like so much of the Prime Minister's beliefs. Beliefs on climate change, beliefs on marriage equality—it has all gone.

Unfortunately, this Prime Minister, as former Prime Minister and a great Prime Minister Paul Keating called him, has been an absolute 'fizzer'. It is so disappointing that someone with the intellect and, you would think, the business aptitude and the political experience of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull would actually want to make a mark of some type during their time in parliament and mean something—something based on what we all thought in this nation that Malcolm Turnbull believed in. Well, that has all gone and instead what we have is this attack on everyday Australians which Labor simply cannot support.

We cannot support a cut to a company tax rate when the Liberals and the Nationals have so badly increased debt in this country—from $184 billion to $317 billion, as currently project in MYEFO. That is a near doubling of Australia's government debt. That is why there is a need now more than ever for multinational companies to pay their fair share of tax. It is so unfair to take away from everyday Australians, the majority of Australians who are trying to make ends meet, and let these massive companies get away with murder. It is absolutely disgusting and the government needs to do something about it.