Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, they've moved to Queensland. Heaven knows why, under Labor, but we won't go there. I haven't got time to talk about that. We've got to get back to reforming the tax act. To do that, and to reform the economy, we need lower taxes on the people that get out of bed every day and go to work, and we need lower taxes on productive income—the people who actually get on the tools. Some students can still go to universities; we still need our doctors and our engineers. I'm not saying every university degree isn't a good idea, but we need more of our children back into TAFE and back on the tools, adding value to our raw materials. I was speaking to a member of the Liberal Party last week who has seen the light. He originally thought privatising infrastructure was a good thing. He said to me: 'When it was first happening, I thought it was a good thing. But one of the things I didn't realise was that when they did that, they stopped training electricians and people with other important skills through government programs when the infrastructure was publicly owned.'

That's the other thing we need to do if we want to lower taxes—increase the productive output of this country. As anyone who has ridden a bike knows, the lower the gear, the faster the cadence. So, if we can have lower taxes, we can increase the output in the country. We also want to lower the cost of doing business. How do we do that? We build more dams, more power stations, better roads, better railways, better ports and better communication infrastructure. I'm not against the retail arm of telecommunications being private, because it's high-speed, fast-moving goods, but we have to control our infrastructure. Of course, that was the piece de resistance of communism and Marxism—selling all our infrastructure. But if we can increase the production of goods and services then we can actually lower the tax rate. A greater volume multiplied by a lower tax rate will equal the same tax takings. So, if we want to lower taxes, we need to take other measures to get rid of the red tape, green tape, black tape and blue tape.

I should also add that we need to close some loopholes in the tax act, such as for the education sector. Why don't universities have to pay for the income they earn from foreign students? Why do foreigners not have to pay capital gains tax on the sale of water rights? Why do they not have to pay capital gains tax on the sale of assets that are a non-portfolio asset? Why is it that foreign superannuation funds and sovereign wealth funds don't have to pay tax in Australia? That's a nice little switcheroo. When the Future Fund here invests in foreign offshore assets, they don't have to pay tax. Likewise, when foreign superannuation funds and sovereign wealth funds invest here, they don't have to pay tax. Of course, the argument is that it's a false economy because then they don't have to pay their bureaucrats as much when you pay them their defined benefits scheme. That's a rort if ever I've seen one. We ought to means test that one as well, which is a lazy $300 billion for about 130,000 retired bureaucrats down here, which works out at something like $1 million to $1½ million for every retired bureaucrat. That's not a bad gig if you can get it.

But, long story short, why is it that we have all these loopholes in the tax act for the elites and foreigners? Who picks up the tab? I'll tell you who picks up the tab: it's hardworking Australians, when they get out of bed and put their nose to the grindstone, through bracket creep when they pay their income taxes. If we want to lower income tax, we need to reform the tax act. You can come and give me a call, Labor Party; I'll help you do that. We need to build more infrastructure. We need to put the Australian working families first. We need to get our manufacturing industry up and running again. To do that, we've got to get our children back on the tools. I'm not against some children going to university, but not everyone needs to go to university to have a happy life. We need to get back on the tools, people. We need to learn how to sweat, work hard and understand what it's like to work on a factory floor again.