Mal Brough (Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

It is interesting that we should have a matter of public importance brought forward by, of all people, the member for Melbourne about the problems confronting working families, because this nation has a hell of a lot more working families under the Howard government. There have been 2,087,900 new jobs created between March 1996 and April 2007. In 11 years, two million more Australians are working. There are a heck of a lot more working families, I tell the member for Melbourne.

The good news is that those families today have a minimum wage that has had real growth of 12.4 per cent. The minimum wage actually went backwards under those who sit opposite, the Labor Party. They paid the lowest wage earners in this country less, and many of them actually articulated that they were proud of it. The number of unemployed in this country today sits at 482,700—too many, but a far cry from the 934,000 at the peak in December 1992. The unemployment rate peaked at 10.9 per cent—double digits. Unfortunately, I think that too many Australians today forget what it was like when your children left school and they did not have a job to go to, they did not have a future, and they were put on an endless roundabout of training and told: ‘That’s as good as it gets. You’ll get a visit from the social security office whilst you’re still at school so that you can go on unemployment benefits.’ That was the future that families had to confront under a Labor government.

We are proud to say that in this country today when young children leave school, no matter which electorate they are in, they have opportunities, with a higher minimum wage and real job opportunities that can go somewhere—not training that leads to more training that leads to more training and does not end in any positive result. Here is an interesting pointer for the member for Melbourne and all those that sit opposite: back in 1996, 45 electorates out of the total of about 147 had an unemployment rate of over 10 per cent—one in 10 productive Australians did not have a job. As with many of the members, I know the member for New England in his regional area would have had huge pockets of unemployment and despair. Country folk were always used to working hard and pitching in, but there was just nothing there. That is what the Labor Party left; that is the reality. Even today, with the drought in those areas, they are in a far better position that they were then. Since September 2006, there has not been one federal electorate with an unemployment rate of over 10 per cent. That is a good thing. That is about working families.

Let us go directly to what this budget was able to deliver to the Australian people as a result of excellent economic management. You do not give tax cuts year after year if you are running up deficits. You only do it if you have surpluses and you can afford to pay them. In the Treasurer’s budget speech a couple of weeks ago he announced that every Australian taxpayer will receive a tax cut on 1 July. Exactly what will they receive? Not $2 or $3 but, as the Treasurer said at the time, around $16 a week on average and $21 a week for people on $30,000. Incentives will be provided for people to re-enter the workforce. People that do not have jobs will have more reason to re-enter the workforce and give themselves a better chance in life. For those in part-time work there is more incentive to take up additional hours.

In 1999 taxpayers earning $30,000 paid $6,222 in income tax—$6,222 gone in tax. From July 2007 the same person will pay $2,854. That is a reduction of 54 per cent. To families that means being able to buy new shoes for the children when they go to school, pay the fees when the kids want to go to sporting activities and pay for music lessons—the realities in places like Morayfield and Beaudesert and down in the suburbs of Melbourne. Real people in real circumstances will (a) have a job, (b) pay less tax and (c) get higher wages because of economic management.

The member for Melbourne in his speech said, ‘What about child care?’ What about it? We have just increased the childcare benefit in this budget by 13.3 per cent, which means that the average family will have $20 less taken out of their pocket when they pay their childcare fees. Over and above that, the childcare tax rebate means that about 100,000 low-income families that did not have a big enough tax liability to get the benefit of the childcare tax rebate will now get it. It means $300, $400 or $500 which they would not have got to help them with their childcare fees—massive improvements. These families will have up to an extra $30 a week between those two measures. Do you think that makes a difference? Absolutely.

All of this is at risk if a Labor government is elected. That is not just rhetoric. Let us look at some of the facts. Who are the team of people that want to lead this country and this $1 trillion economy? What credentials do they have and what do they believe? It is not about what they say but about what they believe in. The member for Melbourne—he wants to be the Treasurer, but of course he cannot get that job—hopes to be the finance minister, who looks after the purses of this nation and makes sure that it is running properly. Let us have a look at what the member for Melbourne believes in, as stated in this very chamber on this side of the House when he was in government back in 1994—not back in the dim, dark ages but just over a decade ago. He said:

Unlike some, I take no pride in the fact that Australia is now close to or is actually the lowest taxed country in the OECD.

That is an unbelievable statement for someone that wants to lead this country—he is not proud of the fact that this nation has low taxes. The Labor member for Melbourne, who wants to be the finance minister under a Rudd government, went on to say—and this is the scary part for the Australian public:

I am quite happy to state that I think the total tax take is too low.

You cannot be more obvious and direct than that. He said that while championing—wait for it!—death duties, and also stating that the 60 per cent top marginal tax rate is something that he aspired to, not on an income of $200,000 but on an income of $75,000.

Today, a family with two children under the Howard-Costello government will pay no net tax on an income of $50,800. Let me say it again: under the Howard government today, under good economic management, by lowering taxes year after year, the average Australian family on an income of $50,800 with two children will pay no net tax. Compare that with 1996 when the coalition came into government. That same family, for every dollar they earnt over $50,000, gave 47c plus their Medicare fees of 1½ per cent, totalling 48½c. Rounded up, for close enough to every dollar they earnt they gave 50c to the Labor Party when it was in government. So that family would have been paying, every time the bloke did a bit of overtime or every time the woman did a bit of overtime, half of their earnings to the ALP’s tax man. Today the same family pays no net tax, and people want to put that in jeopardy by giving it to a bloke who wants to be the finance minister who purports to support, or does support, as quoted in this place when last in government, a return or an increase to 60c in the dollar for people earning over $75,000.

There is more about this bloke. You have to listen to what the Labor Party has actually said in the past when it had a chance to force things on the Australian public. I will read this passage from The Latham Diaries, written by the former Leader of the Opposition, for Monday, 18 October because it goes to the heart of the belief system of the bloke that actually wants to run the finances of this country and put the living standards of Australians in jeopardy. Here is the former leader of the Labor Party at just the last election. He says in his diary:

Lindsay Tanner came all the way from Melbourne today to see me in my electorate office—a man on a mission. He made a long, rehearsed and slightly bizarre pitch to be Shadow Treasurer, telling me about his wonderful microeconomic reform credentials and links to the economic writers ...

I told you that he aspired to be the Treasurer, Mr Deputy Speaker. Mr Latham says:

I sat there thinking: this is the bloke who argued at Shadow Cabinet that we shouldn’t proceed with trade practices reform until we cleared it with the Shoppies.

For those who do not know, the ‘shoppies’ are the unions. Every time the Treasurer and the Prime Minister stand here and tell the public that this mob are totally beholden to the unions, here is the former Labor leader—who wanted to be the Prime Minister just last time around—confirming that the bloke who wants to be the finance minister could not make a decision on reforms to the Trade Practices Act without talking to the unions. He continues:

Now he thinks he’s Roger Douglas.

Let me go back to what he had to say. He says:

Tanner is one of Comb-over’s mates—

‘Comb-over’ is the member who represents Canberra here, and I do not want to be derogatory to him for his lack of hair; I am going that way myself—

so I gave him some truth serum as well: ‘Listen, Lindsay, the view around Caucus is that you have been a bit lazy, always promising big things but never delivering in the Shadow portfolios you’ve had.

Isn’t this just Labor all over—promising big things and being lazy? You cannot be lazy in government and deliver for Australian families two million jobs, lower taxes, higher basic wages and real wage increases—it just cannot be done. But these are not the Treasurer’s words and these are not the Prime Minister’s words. They are the words of a bloke who knew him really well, the bloke who actually allowed him to be shadow finance minister. He goes on:

I would want to see you perform on the frontbench before even thinking about you as Shadow Treasurer.

It was good enough to make him shadow finance minister. He goes on:

I had in mind his lacklustre effort in developing community building policies. I gave him that gig at the National Conference and said I wanted a big agenda; he delivered something on mentoring and that was it. Cooney said he couldn’t get anything else out of him, so we had to scramble to put a few things together for the campaign ...

That is so insightful. Here is Labor at its best. It wants to run a $1 trillion campaign and the man that wants to be the finance minister is scrambling to put a few things together. We know that no-one in this nation knows who Lindsay Tanner is—the member for Melbourne—but they need to know who he is and they need to know just what a risk he is to their hip pockets and to their job security, to their income and to the future of their children, because this is the bloke that is too lazy to put policies together, who believes in reintroducing death duties, who believes in a 60 per cent marginal tax rate and who wants to be the finance minister in a Rudd government.

This is what we are faced with: a government that delivers, a government that delivers real jobs, a government that has cut taxes and that now has the top marginal tax rate not cutting in at $50,001 but, from 1 July next year, at $180,000—and that is where it should cut in—and a government that has been able to deliver by putting $5 billion into a Future Fund for our kids in universities because we had the money. The money will not be there if you continue to let people flirt with the idea of having Labor in government.

Let us not go back to 1994 but go back to the last election. Let us go back to what these people that sit opposite that want to sit on the government benches were going to deliver up to Australian families. They were going to actually make Australian families on $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, $35,000, $80,000, $90,000 worth of income worse off. It is unbelievable that a Labor Party would take people at both ends of the spectrum and in one fell swoop make them worse off. Of course, not everyone in the Labor Party thought that was a really good idea. On the 20 November 2004, the Financial Review reported:

MPs attacked Labor’s tax policy for creating low income “losers” and for being too complicated to explain.

I do not know how the member for Throsby, a former union boss, can actually be part of a party that would purport to support workers. In their last policy they proposed to cut the income of those that can afford it least. That is what Labor stood for at the last election. The architects of that policy were the member for Lilley, who is now the shadow Treasurer and wants to be Treasurer and, of course, Tanner, the member for Melbourne, who wants to put taxes up to 60 per cent. We wonder why the public should have great doubts about their capacity in government. These are the facts. These are the faces that people do not see. These are the people who will take away your wages, will take away the industrial relations regime that provides the job opportunities, will reduce your real take-home pay and will not be able to deliver for Australia. This is about delivering for Australian families, and the Australian government has done it in spades. (Time expired)

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