Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is, of course, where you go, Senator Evans, because you are so lacking in acumen to find something substantial to pose in an argument. You are now running the nation, you are now the government and you cannot even clearly dictate your own government’s policy in the chamber here. You have to wait for a backbencher to correct you. What does it say about you and where you are? Let us go through a few of the other things. In a simple message, this so-called luxury car tax is actually attacking the cars that Australia produces. We have Senator Carr out there trying to build up the car industry—and rightly so—and, at the same time, your own government, Senator Evans, is inspiring a tax on the cars that we produce.

In the future, the Indians and the Chinese will produce the cheap cars. We will never compete with them. There is an inelasticity in demand, of over 120,000, in the cars the Europeans produce. You are taxing the cars that the Australian car manufacturing industry produces. And, for the life of me, I cannot work out why you would want to do that. For the life of me I cannot work out why you would want to tax the cars that are providing employment for Australian men and women and keeping them in jobs. There is almost pathos in your approach to this policy. Why would you inspire a tax on an area of demand in which people’s response will be to buy a car from another country? Why would you do that? Where did that seed of wisdom come from?

I notice that for every car that Australia produces there will be a version of it in the luxury car tax bracket. I am sure the people of Victoria are going to be absolutely fascinated to hear that the Labor Party is supporting putting them out of a job. This statement almost bowled me over: the tax is to combat inflation. So we are going to put the price of something up to bring inflation down. Who was the economic guru who came up with those words of wisdom? Where did that come from? The whole process is just so moronic. Why would you even bother saying something like that? It is so wrong. But it falls into line with Labor saying, ‘The luxury car tax threshold limits starts at $57,123,’ when it does not; it starts at $57,180. They do not even know their own policy.

But let us try and make some sense out of this onerous, ridiculous tax. Why on earth is the threshold at $57,180? Even if you wanted to keep to the scheme, to keep to the picture, I think you should have a look at what was presented at the Senate Standing Committee on Economics. The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries gave some suggestions about what the tax might be moved to so as to keep some semblance of reality. The chamber presented evidence to the committee showing various indexing scenarios for the luxury car tax threshold since 2000. These showed that, while the luxury car tax has increased from $55,134 to $57,180 since 2000, during the same period the threshold would be $71,106 using the CPI, $79,950 using the average weekly earnings and $63,504 if indexed against the average price of the cheapest ‘family six’. The cheapest ‘family six’ is important to me because I have a family of six.

In a sense, the only thing that you can say is that it is a grab for money, and they are going about it in the most base and simplistic way. It is without any sort of rhyme or reason. This is the form of economic policy coming forth from Labor. People ask: ‘Why are you going to oppose the luxury car tax?’ I will because it is an anachronism. It is a farce. It is a ridiculous compilation of arbitrary ideas with no real purpose, no real meaning and no real substance. That is why I will oppose it. It is not because the Labor Party came up with it; it is because it is a stupid idea. What would be the reasonable approach? A reasonable approach would be for the government to come back and say, ‘We are looking at the CPI; we are looking at the average weekly earnings,’ or to say that they are looking at anything. But they are not. We just have this ridiculous figure plucked out the air that Labor have come up with.

Surely the government would understand that a car over $57,180 is hardly going to be perceived in the community at large today as being a luxury. Even when the term ‘luxury’ is used, it suggests the government are trying to gild the facts. If they just said, ‘This is a tax to help the Labor Party collect money when it cannot think of another idea,’ then they would probably have some sort of position to stand on. But unfortunately the luxury car tax starts to fall into the same realm as other parts of economic policy.

I will quote from the Labor Party’s recommendation 3.2 in the economics committee’s report. It is about how the Labor Party sees other things that it would possibly determine as a luxury. ‘Luxury! I used to live in a hole in the road! Luxury, son!’ This is the Labor Party’s position. Get ready, Australia; here it comes. This is envy; it is class war detritus being dragged back out. We thought it was dead and buried, but this is what they said:

The committee sees some merit in the argument that it is ‘unfair’ that luxury cars are taxed but not other luxury purchases—

There is something for the books: ‘but not other luxury purchases’; it is a value judgement to determine what they will be—

such as yachts or expensive artworks—

I would love to see their definition of an expensive artwork. There is something for the arts community; get ready—

and jewellery.

This is where they are off to. They continue:

However, as there is already a luxury cars tax, there are less administrative and compliance costs in increasing it ...

So we already have our finger on motor vehicles; we do not have to worry about the others—yet. That is the answer: we do not have to worry about the others yet. They are coming with the Henry review. It is because there is less compliance cost. They have already got their foot on this issue so they are going to give it a little bit of a kick. This is what it said:

... rather than introducing new taxes on other luxury goods.

So they are getting to the rest:

Introducing any more general luxury taxes should await the Henry review of the tax system.

So there it is. Men and women of Australia; they are coming! They are coming with more taxes for you—and they are going to determine them on a value statement of their belief of what you should and should not have. That will be the basis of it: ‘I believe you should have that; I believe you should not have that.’ Because the Labor Party believes you should not have that they are going to tax you. That is it. It is the inception of envy. It is, you know, the Mr Rudd statement, ‘I’m a fiscal conservative’ with, at the start, a semblance of envy and then a progression of envy and then the delivery of envy policy.

This is it. This is fact. This is what the government said. This is what they are going to do. They put it in their own report. They are going to deliver it to us. I will be honest: it does not matter whether you are talking to a shearer in Baradine, someone in town or a cane farmer up the north coast, they are over that argument. That is the government’s argument, not theirs. That is some sort of ridiculous positioning on what they think people are entitled to and what they are not entitled to. They are entitled to what they can pay for; they are not entitled to the government’s sort of idea: ‘That is beyond what is acceptable; you must come back to the pack; you must be one of us. We are going to tax people because they dare to spend more than $57,180 on a car.’ What sort of luxury tax are you going to put on houses? Have you got one of them coming up? Do you have a luxury tax on houses?