Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I also seek to take note of the ministerial statement. I do not seek to delay the work of the chamber, but there were a number of misrepresentations and simple mistruths aired by Senator Cameron that I believe require correction. The first point to make concerns the clear mistruth that is presented here by the Labor Party that somehow people should be made to pay tax twice. The refunds are provided to hardworking Australians who invest their money, often in Australian companies—in this case, they have to be Australian companies they invest in to get franking credits. They should not be made to pay tax twice. That should be a basic principle. We don't believe that people should be made to pay tax twice.

But, of course, the Labor Party think twice is not enough—they should be made to pay three times, four times, five times—because Labor constantly need more money to fund their ever-expanding schemes to waste your money. We're on the side of people who work and save and invest in this country. That's why we believe they should be able to keep some of their money in their pockets to provide for themselves in their retirement. The Labor Party see anybody's savings as a big nest egg for them to raid, and that is what they are trying to do.

The second point to make is: Senator Cameron is saying that this particular policy, which has now been in place for almost 20 years, is somehow a rort. If what Senator Cameron just said was half-true, even one-quarter true, why did the Labor Party, in their six years in government in the intervening 20-year period, do nothing to fix this rort? Mr Shorten was in fact the Assistant Treasurer for periods of time in that six years and apparently did nothing to fix this, according to Senator Cameron, obvious rort.

Senator Cameron interjecting—

That exactly shows the bankruptcy of the point you are making, Senator Cameron, because in your time in government you did nothing. What you have seen now in opposition is a need to fund your ever-expanding spending promises to the Australian people. At the last election, you didn't have enough money to fund them; you were $16 billion in the red for them. Now you need to raid people's piggy banks to fund the schemes you want to waste people's money on. We don't think that people's retirement savings are there for the Labor Party to come and raid when they run out of their own money. That is not what people should have to work and save and invest for. They should be able to provide for their own retirement themselves.

Finally—and I don't want to delay the chamber long here—we see now an opposition clearly not ready for government. We already see in the newspapers and the press that the policy, this major tax reform, according to the opposition, which it put out only a couple of weeks ago, is about to be changed. My colleague Senator Di Natale made the point earlier today in the chamber that the opposition is about to change its own policy. The policy has lasted just two weeks. It's clearly not an opposition ready for government, because it can't even get a simple policy announcement right. This is clearly a first draft for the Labor Party. It is a first draft of tax reform. It is not an opposition that is ready for government, and you can't trust an opposition that can't get the simple things right with the government's finances, with the Treasury benches. It obviously needs more time to get its act together, because it's about to change and dump a major tax reform that's only been in place for two weeks.

Instead, the Labor Party should join with others in this chamber to adopt real tax reform, which actually means trying to lower the tax burden on Australian businesses and families and lower corporate taxes, like we are trying to do here, to try and encourage more investment, more savings, better business conditions, more wealth, more prosperity and more job opportunities for all Australians.