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

The member for Bass asked me about steps the government has taken to reform Australia’s tax system. The government has cut tax in the 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 budgets. As a consequence of that, if you are on an annual income of $30,00 today you will be paying a top marginal tax rate of 15 per cent. Under the Labor Party, if you were earning $30,000, you were paying a top marginal tax rate of 34 per cent—which is more than double. If you are on $50,000 today, you will be paying a top marginal tax rate of 30c in the dollar. Under the Labor Party you were paying a top marginal tax rate of 47c in the dollar.

In addition to that, the government introduced GST to abolish wholesale sales tax and nine other state taxes. The government cut company tax. The government halved capital gains tax for individuals. The government cut petrol excise and abolished indexation. The government has introduced the childcare tax rebate, the mature age workers tax offset and the senior Australians tax offset; and the government has abolished all taxes for people over 60 who take superannuation from a taxed fund. This is light years from the tax system that the Labor Party used to run. Strangely enough, we did not implement those tax reforms by setting up a committee. We did not sit around and say we would have a council. What this government actually did was: we took some decisions and we fought for reductions in tax.

When we were fighting to reduce taxes, I did not notice anybody in the Labor Party assisting. In fact, we heard the Leader of the Opposition—with surely one of the more inane speeches ever delivered in this parliament—calling tax reform a day of fundamental injustice which would live in infamy throughout the centenary of the Australian parliament.

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