Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is always good to follow my good friend the member for Wannon, especially on such a cold night in Canberra. His stories of dedication to both his football club and his electorate always warm my heart. I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) and related bills. Before I get into my speech I want to drill down a little bit on some detail that the member for Wannon used in his speech. The Labor Party proposed to spend $80 billion more than us on health and education. They do not want fuel excise, which is worth $19 billion. All of these figures are over 10 years. They want to increase foreign aid by $16 billion over 10 years. There is a $58 billion black hole in what was announced in the budget reply speech. That is over four years—and I do not know if we have modelled that yet—but let us apply simple mathematics and apply a factor of 2½ and make it 130 or 140—you are approaching $250-$300 billion. They very conveniently move between four-year and 10-year time frames. Forward estimates are always so unimportant when in government because they put everything outside of those but so important to them in government so that they cannot have exposed the breadth and depth of the gap in their financial figures, modelled over 10 years. On the flip side, they model the revenue of proposed tax increases, so-called reform, in 10-year multiples. If you drill down that figure of $250-300 billion, we have $14 billion which will come from superannuation tax changes that they are proposing and tax increases.

Effectively for the first time in our country's history we will now run two systems of tax indexation—one for when you are working and one for when you are retired. Excellent, a fantastic initiative! It seems to me the more progressive the taxation systems, the better we all will be—not! Then they have $9 billion from taxing multinationals. There is this net sum total of $23 billion, and, like the member for Wannon, I do look forward over the next 12 to 18 months hearing from the Leader of the Opposition and his crack team—that were there for the six years of the debacle that we inherited—how they will fund over 10 years the further $220-$250 billion on the back of an envelope. Of course, the sad part is that, as the Minister for Social Services so beautifully said, they reach into the bucket, but the problem is there is nothing in the bucket, they have emptied the bucket. I am surprised we have a bucket left.

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