Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

compared to the US where a single income couple with two children earning the average wage took home $30,081. Again, on average wages for a single-income couple with a family, the Australian worker takes home more than the US worker does. In each of those cases Australia produced the sixth best outcome of the 30 countries of the OECD. This shows that Australia is up the top of the ladder for low taxes and particularly up the top of the ladder when it comes to wage earners who are on average earnings or single-income wage earners.

I heard members of the opposition interjecting. We might be interested to hear from their interjections what their tax policy might be. Even if they take no interest in what their spokesmen says, I do. The Labor Party has now called for a tax cut for hybrid cars, a tax cut for child care, a tax cut for low-income workers, a tax cut for developers of gas fields, a cut in company tax, a tax cut for middle-income earners and a tax cut for high-income earners. There you have it: everybody out there is entitled to a tax cut, according to the Australian Labor Party.

You might ask yourself: how is this all to be paid for? That question was put to the member for Lilley by Charles Wooley this morning. The member for Lilley was fuming with Mr Wooley about what had to be done and Mr Wooley said to him, ‘What should the top rate be? Let’s quickly work out what the top rate of the ideal tax system would be.’ Not a bad question. Listen to this: ‘Charles, I’m not going to nominate a rate on this program.’ Wooley: ‘Come on!’ Swan: ‘Then I’ll have Peter Costello in the parliament who’ll cost it.’ Oh, silly old me! Fancy keeping the Labor Party honest. Fancy actually asking them to pay for a promise. Oh where will I end the nasty tricks that I keep getting up to, actually looking behind these promises to see what they are going to cost and whether or not they are affordable?

This is what you learn in Labor Party training school when you go to the seminar. Seminar 1 on a Monday morning is how to stack a branch. Seminar 2 on Monday morning is how to deliver money to Democrats in brown paper envelopes. Seminar 3 on a Monday morning is how to say a family payment of $600 is not real money. If you say it over and over again, you can generally get somebody to believe it. This member for Lilley is the person who distinguished himself at the last election by claiming that $600 paid to every Australian family did not exist. So we have every right to ask him to nominate his rates and I can promise him this: we will be costing his policy and it will cost him very dearly.

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