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

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed that 68 per cent of the income of a person on an average weekly income was spent on charges to government—68 per cent. That is equivalent to your wages for working from Monday to smoko mid-morning Thursday paying the government: rates, levies, fees, charges, GST, special charges and so on. Sixty-eight per cent; working three and one-third days out of five. The rest is all the people have left to spend on their own lives. That was from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Think about some of these things. The price of food as basic as a loaf of bread—50 per cent tax. Sorry; that is the cost of a loaf of bread. Then there is housing. Studies have shown that around 88 per cent of the cost of a house is tax, and I will talk more about that in a minute. The price of petrol: 70 per cent is made up of tax. When we look at food, when we look at bread, 50 per cent of the cost of a loaf of bread is tax. So in effect that is a 100 per cent tax rate—an effective tax rate of 100 per cent. Convert the housing; that is almost 100 per cent effective tax rate. Convert the price of petrol, that is an effective tax rate of 230 per cent. This means that a person gets up in a home and she makes some sandwiches to save money because of the cost-of-living pressures. She is paying a 100 per cent tax rate on bread. She then walks out of her house, where she is paying a 100 per cent effective tax rate. And her petrol on the way to work, she fills up the car at a 230 per cent effective tax rate.

What do we see as the solution to everything the Greens come up with? Add another tax. It gets worse than that for housing affordability; because if half the cost of a house is tax, then that means the loan itself is double what it has to be. Think of the added interest when the loan is double what it has to be. Now you understand why housing is not affordable for young people. We can thank the Greens for that, because the Greens tax imposts are adding enormously to the cost of living. And we can thank the Greens, because due to their ridiculous policies they are raising the cost of energy and energy prices. That is decreasing employment and increasing costs. We must get back to basics and look at the whole tax system comprehensively.