Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, is suffering from an inferiority complex. He wants Australians to accept an inferior tax plan to the tax reform plan that is already legislated in this parliament. He has chosen to sacrifice genuine tax reform on the altar of by-election politics. He has chosen to ignore two important figures. The first figure is 95. Under the original tax reform package that was already legislated, stage 1, stage 2 and stage 3, 95 per cent of Australians would have been paying 30 cents in the dollar or less. Instead—and this is the second number—he wants, in 10 years time, four million Australians to be paying more tax than they are now. This is not tax reform. This is a tax stitch-up.

Anthony Albanese is not Bob Hawke, and he's not Paul Keating. Australian taxpayers deserve better. They will quickly forget the modesty of this tax benefit when it evaporates out of their pockets because of very real cost-of-living pressures. But they will remember that this was a Prime Minister that abandoned his word. And let's remember what that word was. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: 'And, when it comes to stage 3 tax cuts, we've made the obvious point that they are legislated. We voted for them in the parliament. People should expect those tax cuts to flow in a couple of years time on the usual time frame.' Australians were wrong to believe Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.