Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw. The Treasurer’s blatant misrepresentations do not stop there. The final misrepresentation of the Treasurer I want to draw the public’s attention to today is his claim about the taxation of the states. Normally I would leave it to the states to defend themselves, but the Treasurer’s comments on Sky TV on Monday cannot go without mention. The Treasurer said:

If you want to see people who have to be dragged to cut taxes, go and have a look at the Labor Party and Labor governments. How many State Governments, now let me ask this …

He went on:

… how many state Labor governments have cut tax at all let [alone] in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 with a prospective tax cut in 2008?

He said:

None of the above.

That is quite a claim from the Treasurer: the states have not cut any tax at all since 2003. Perhaps the Treasurer was too busy selling his budget to hear that the Western Australian government, in its budget, cut stamp duty for first home buyers, with no stamp duty at all on houses up to $500,000, or that the Queensland government in last year’s budget lifted the payroll tax threshold from $850,000 to $1 million, lifted the land tax threshold from $450,000 to $500,000 and implemented stamp duty relief for first home buyers and principal residence concessions in the 2004-05 budget. The list goes on.

But if the Treasurer bothered to read his own budget papers he would know that the states have voluntarily cut second tranche intergovernmental agreement tax relief relating to stamp duties on non-residential conveyances, non-quotable marketable securities, leases, mortgages, bonds, debentures and other loan securities, credit arrangements, instalment purchase and rental arrangements, cheques, bills of exchange, promissory notes and so on. I seek leave to table a summary of those cuts. These are not on the record.

Leave not granted.

That’d be right! For someone who says that being on top of the detail is a prerequisite for disciplined economic management, the Treasurer has proven himself to be completely loose with the truth—all the time.

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