House debates

Tuesday, 18 August 2009

Questions without Notice

Taxation

2:36 pm

Photo of Wayne SwanWayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I am asked about tax reform. The government has a comprehensive process in train, one that is supported broadly by the Australian community. But of course there was a time when the Leader of the Opposition was the shadow Treasurer. He had an alternative tax plan. The problem is that he has hidden it in the bottom drawer. I well recall when he commissioned Mr Ergas to review the taxation system. Indeed, I think the member for Higgins will well remember some years before when the Leader of the Opposition put forward 289 different proposals for tax reform. But this report from Professor Ergas has not been released. Why has it not been released? That is because there is a secret plan in this House. It is the opposition leader’s secret plan that he will not tell the Australian people about: he has a flat tax plan for the income taxation system which will mean massive tax cuts for the top end and massive tax increases for everybody else. We will have no more of this hypocrisy from those opposite, because they are absolutely incapable of putting forward an alternative plan for this country.

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