Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the many consequences of having elected this government is that there are more taxes—more taxes than were promised at the last election. We have seen a litany of broken promises in relation to personal income tax and also superannuation.

One of my favourite exemptions in the super tax is the exemption that the Labor ministers have given themselves from the application of a new tax on super. The new tax on super won't apply to Mr O'Connor, to Ms King, to Senator Wong or to the Prime Minister. We know that because, when Senator Gallagher was in the Senate estimates chair only two weeks ago, we asked the government how this would apply, and their answer was, 'We don't know, and, because we don't know, we'll come back to you in a future year and tell you how it will work for us.' The hilarious thing here is that the government has issued a tax that will apply to all Australians where it applies, but it won't apply to the politicians in this building. It is an amazing case of hypocrisy. The Australian people hate that about politicians: they are prepared to make rules for everyone except for themselves. In this case, the Prime Minister is exempting himself from this new tax. He's effectively saying to his minister in the future, 'You make the regulation that might apply to me in the future.' So he is exempting himself and asking his underling to make the rules for him. It is a disgusting display of hypocrisy, one that we should not be surprised about. It is one that the Australian people will judge the Labor Party on very harshly, because it's one rule for everyone else and an exemption for the Prime Minister and a handful of ministers.