Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

We are in that time of the festival of parliament, the festival of democracy, where we head towards budget and it is the 'rule in, rule out' game on every front. This is where you start generating, whirring up, going to that scare-campaign slot-machine, putting your coins in and rehashing all the campaigns that you love to scare the community with. You can be absolutely guaranteed that all the decisions that we take in the budget will be in the best interests of Australia. We have made it clear the areas where we have been focusing on tax reform—very significant changes that were made to the former tax plan on stage 3, where we have ensured that 100 per cent of taxpayers get a tax cut. That will be in the budget. We have made it clear that we are clamping down on multinationals through tax reform. Those changes are before the Senate. The petroleum resource rent tax: those changes are before the Senate. High-balance super accounts: those changes are before the Senate. That has been the area of focus for us in tax reform. That's a considerable amount of tax reform, I would say, that is before this parliament and that we are dealing with.

The other area of focus for the budget is doing what we can to continue to ease cost-of-living pressures for Australians and their households. Of course the tax cuts will go part of the way to supporting that. That will be a significant part of the budget. We have announced that we are doing super on PPL; again, that's a significant change and a significant investment but one that we think is important. There'll be significant investments in Defence. And I think I have outlined those areas where we have focused our energy on tax reform. So I would say to Senator Smith, I know what this is all about: the 'rule in, rule out' game. I have been clear about the areas of focus for us on tax reform. They are either before the parliament or have passed the parliament.