Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the minister's desire to get to his feet and close the debate, but I do have the right to say a few words about the Tax Laws Amendment (2012 Measures No. 6) Bill 2012. Schedule 1, tax treatment of native title benefits, and schedule 3, deductibility of geothermal energy exploration expenditure, are the two areas that the coalition is interested in making amendments to, to excise them from the plethora of other schedules which are very comprehensive and grab-bag, as they have been described previously in the debate on this bill before us. Essentially, in the very brief amount of time I have before me—and I am conscious that many other senators on the floor of the chamber are seeking the call—I can say that it is a case study of bad government.

Before us today we have policy redesign on the run, we have time lines pushed out, and we have measures budgeted for a year ago before us today—all to fix a 'revenue problem', as we have heard it described so many times before. What the Australian people know and what we on this side of the chamber know is: there ain't no revenue problem; it is an absolute addiction to spending, which Senator Boyce mentioned earlier. That occurs when you have designed a mining rent tax with the people who are designed to pay the rent tax. The Treasurer has been forced to admit that his personally handcrafted mining tax rates only a fraction of the revenue promised in the budget, and I am wondering whether he is being quite truthful in saying he designed it. He might want to retract that. I think he had a lot of help from the people that were actually looking to pay the tax. It is no surprise it is not raising any money. This government has introduced or increased 27 taxes since coming to office just five years ago—