Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

The government’s Nation Building and Jobs Plan is designed to push back hard against the very powerful negative economic forces emerging from overseas that are causing major problems for the Australian economy and at the same time to leave a legacy of new and upgraded infrastructure for the future of Australians. The individual payments that we are committed to will hit the Australian economy first in March and April but will continue to flow through for some months thereafter because people may in some cases save initially and spend subsequently. The investment in insulation of Australian homes, in schools and in housing will ensure that we rebuild the infrastructure of this nation, both the community infrastructure and the productive infrastructure, for the benefit of future generations.

It is legitimate to ask what exactly across-the-board permanent tax cuts favouring wealthy people would do for future generations in terms of productive infrastructure and community infrastructure. How are they going to improve the productivity of this nation? Yesterday I reminded the House of the infamous statement by the member for Curtin on Sunday where she advised that the coalition’s response was ‘broad and sweeping tax cuts that will increase the tax base and increase tax revenues’. As I have already pointed out, this is based on the discredited theory of Professor Arthur Laffer that if you actually cut taxes that will mean tax revenues grow. I note the Leader of the Opposition’s response to that in a radio interview where he stumbled, he bumbled, he weaved and he ducked but he was unable to avoid saying that he kind of agrees sometimes with his own deputy leader, his own shadow Treasurer. There were lots of, ‘Well, it, it’, ‘Simply this’ and ‘I am not going to’—

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