Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

I've been thinking about that famous Benjamin Franklin quote, 'In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.' You can also add, 'You can be absolutely certain that our major political parties are very good at arguing about tax and totally not good at doing anything about tax reform.' Since March last year I have been calling for the stage 3 tax cuts to be rejigged so that low- and middle-income earners can get some relief—and that was the right thing to do. If a government or leader gets something wrong, they should fix it. But there are other things that need fixing in our tax system, and it will take real courage.

Do we have the courage do that, or does the government of the day have the courage to do that? I doubt it. Our tax system was written in the 20th century, and that's a problem in itself. I'm not an economist, but most of them will tell you our tax system isn't match fit for the 21st century—and it certainly wasn't written before COVID came around. Australians want and need better services; that's what our tax system is supposed to pay for. But it's everyday Australians that carry most of that burden. Over the next 10 years our governments will have to spend a lot more on the NDIS, aged care, defence and our health system, and all this spending pressure will grow as Australians get older and the climate change weather events keep getting worse.

According to the OECD, Australia is a low-taxing nation compared to similar countries. We tax the pay packets of everyday Australians, but we let multinationals dodge millions of dollars of tax every year. Every year they keep dodging tax—why wouldn't they?—because the companies throw their hands in the air and say that they will have to leave. That's what they say: 'We will have to leave.' What a load of rubbish! Won't don't you play them at their game and say: 'Good—leave. Go find somewhere else to dig your iron ore.' Go on, tell them: 'Leave. If you don't want to pay your tax here properly, and you don't want to support this country, then get out of it.' No-one seems to have the courage. The Nationals and the major parties do not have the courage to hold them responsible and to make them pay their fair share. Many Australians out there, millions of them, are getting really sick of this. They've had enough. They're sick of picking up the burden when the multinationals are not.

Do you know the government gets more from young Australians out there paying back their HECS than they do from the oil and gas companies who operate here in this country? That in itself is shameful. You're prepared to rip off our kids instead of taking from the multinationals. That's where we are today in 2024. On top of that—not only is that bad enough—we also give the oil and gas companies $11 billion in subsidies. That's right, Australians. So we give them subsidies, and we don't tax them properly, but, don't worry, we'll pick on our young people out there, who don't have a big enough voice and enough cash in their pockets and can't make enough political donations, and we'll take the money off them. It is frightening.

The Australian Taxation Office's eighth Corporate tax transparency report looked at over 2,000 companies. Guess what? I know, Australians, this won't surprise you, but over a third of them didn't pay tax at all. They didn't pay tax. I guess, when you're paying no tax, that's an accountant's invoice that is worth paying, isn't it? Yes, it is. If you're an Australian earning good money, you can access lots of tax discounts like capital gains tax, negative gearing and family trust arrangements. The list goes on and on. These are available to all Australians but are accessed most by older and richer Australians. A substantial review of the tax system by former Treasury boss Ken Henry in 2009 made more than 100 recommendations. You wouldn't guess it out there, but guess what? Most of them have not been implemented. That's right; they haven't been implemented. There's nothing on you having independent inquiries, Senate inquiries, and House inquiries. Great! You make these recommendations, and they go back on the shelf. I wish we could give every dollar away for all those recommendations that are not put back out there and not spoken about again because of the lack of courage in this place.

Whenever there is talk of fixing these tax breaks, the media and politicians start talking about winners and losers. Scare campaigns pop up everywhere, especially at election time, and then it deteriorates into nastiness either about the top end of town or the so-called welfare cheats. That's where we're at—the blame game. We have to be adults about this, and we're a long way from it. We're like a bunch of two-year-olds, running around still in the cot, instead of saying: 'Something needs to be fixed. Let's fix it.' Because that's what a leader does; they fix it. We have to talk about tax reform, and we have to act on it. Fixing the stage 3 tax cuts doesn't count as reform. It's not even close. To be grown-ups and make the changes the experts recommend will require political courage, like I said, and that will mean both major parties leaving their donors and vested interests at the door. Just for once, I ask you to put this country before anything else. If you put this country, this nation before your donors and anything else, my goodness, the leaps and bounds that economically we could make in this country would be astounding. It would be absolutely astounding.

Here's something the government could fix now. They could fix the dodgy GST deal the Morrison government did with Western Australia in 2018. I say this to Tasmanians especially, because you are set to lose $900 million in GST revenue very shortly. When this deal was done, the government told Australians that it was because the price of iron ore was expected to fall. Anyway, the price of iron ore didn't fall, and prices went up, and they have stayed up. The Prime Minister at the time, Scott Morrison, promised that other states and territories wouldn't be worse off and would be topped up. This top-up was supposed to cost about $2.3 billion. Guess what it's projected to cost today? It's $30 billion. Do you think the Labor Party over there is going to top up Tasmania with the money that was taken off by this side over here? I doubt it. Once again, this shows a lack of courage. We'll keep reminding them of the lack of courage as we're going into elections, no doubt. But, seriously, for that $900 million—or more now—to come out of Tasmania: whoa! I tell you what, the Treasurer has agreed to keep the top-up deal to Tasmania going, and that's a good thing, but fixing this dodgy deal would be better. As Saul Eslake, economist and proud Tasmanian, told the Sydney Morning Herald, 'the smaller states, like Tasmania, South Australia and the NT, are going to face a fiscal cliff when that part of the deal ends'. He also made the excellent point that fixing the GST isn't about numbers; it's about votes. How about that? He said:

"The GST deal isn't Chalmers' fault, but no party is going to abandon it because of the politics of WA. Something is going to have to change because it can't continue."

Once again, I'm just one of millions that know it doesn't come down to GST; it comes down to whether or not we have power and how many seats we can win. Those are not the best interests of the nation, never will be and never have been. I don't know where we lost that way, to be honest. In both these chambers we lost the way to put the nation first. And we have seriously lost our way. We need courage and we need political courage—the courage to talk about tax reform, the courage to listen to the experts and the courage to reform our tax system so that it's fair. Our young people out there have to stop coughing up most of it. It is shameful, like I've said before. We're supposed to be the land of the fair go. That's part of our values. Just a reminder in here, but we sure don't see that in our tax system.