David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today, just two days after the 2017 budget was delivered, it is time to acknowledge the mistreatment of Australia's taxpayers, amongst the longest-suffering peoples on this land, in a budget in which those taxpayers—the ones who pay for all that the government does; the diminishing minority—once again copped a hammering. We reflect, in particular, on the systematic punishment meted out to wealth creators and on the relentless grab of their hard-earned money.

On behalf of myself, my party and those who share my views, I apologise for the laws and policies of successive coalition and Labor governments that inflicted a profound loss of wealth on our people, deprived them of their liberties, and then took pride in recklessly spending their money. On their behalf, I say: I am deeply sorry about the sheer greed of those in power who believe they are entitled to an ever and ever larger share of other people's money, and their fake generosity—transforming giving away other people's money into an art form.

Can we take a minute now to reflect on how this money was grabbed in this budget and how it was wasted? It was grabbed from wage and salary earners who suffer higher and higher taxes each year through bracket creep, grabbed from the customers and shareholders of banks, grabbed from the people who already pay most of the tax via a higher Medicare levy, grabbed from those who employ foreign workers because they need their skills and grabbed from those who smoke cigars and roll their own cigarettes, leading more and more to switch to the illicit market.

Governments, over decades past, Labor and Liberal, right up to the present day, have imposed myriad income taxes, company taxes, sales and consumption taxes, tariffs, excises, levies and stamp duties, and then they strangled creativity with red tape. Then there is the waste. It is wasted on welfare for those on middle-class incomes, like childcare subsidies for those on very high incomes, when it should be for the poor—up to $350,000 a year; wasted on welfare for over 800,000 people who are not Australian citizens; and wasted on nearly two million public servants and all their spending. How can a nation of 23 million possibly need two million public servants? It is wasted on Aboriginal welfare—failing to improve their welfare and not closing the gap; wasted on antibusiness, environmental and industrial laws that cost thousands their jobs; and wasted on duplicated Commonwealth and state departments, such as health, education and environment.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past. Unfortunately, that cannot occur under either a coalition or Labor government. As the budget has shown, one is no better than the other. They differ only in terms of how they rack up ever more deficits and debt—whether to rack up deficits and debt is never questioned.

For a party that does not believe in deficits and debt and that has a plan to do something about them, we can look to the Liberal Democrats. Our 20 per cent flat tax would turn Australia into a magnet for wealth creation. And our plan to abolish import tariffs, alcohol tax, tobacco tax and fuel tax would dramatically cut the cost of living. We could then focus welfare on the needs of the truly poor, support our defence forces and justice system, and maintain and improve our infrastructure.

For all the needless pain, suffering and hurt caused by outrageous taxes and regulations, we say sorry. For taxing and harassing the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, the value creators and their valued creations, we say sorry. To those people who have created wealth for everybody else and who were then publicly vilified and pilloried, we say sorry. I offer you this apology without qualification. But now we must move forward with hope renewed and condemn this sorry state of affairs to the scrap heap of history. The Liberal Democrats will never vote for a reduction in your liberties. We will never vote for an increase in taxes, and we will always vote for a tax reduction.