Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2010-2011 and cognate bills. I listened with interest to the words of the member for Werriwa when he talked about truth in this place. It is interesting to note that yesterday we had the Treasurer and the Deputy Prime Minister of this country trying to tell us that the corporate tax rate paid by Australian mining companies was 13 per cent. Where did the Treasurer get that figure from? One would think that a reasonable Treasurer would rely on the advice of the Australian Taxation Office as the appropriate thing to do. The Australian Taxation Office says that the rate of tax paid by resources companies is 41.34 per cent. So when we ask about truth and integrity, which the member for Werriwa has raised in this place, the question is: why did the Treasurer of this country falsely claim—a political fraud—that resources companies are only paying 13 per cent? Why did he do that? The member for Werriwa is silent, and he is now slinking out the side door and even giving me a wave. But how could any Treasurer of this country misrepresent such an important figure? For what reason would he do that? When the Australian Taxation Office is telling you that resources companies are paying 41.34 per cent, why would you say the tax rate is only 13? Was he having a bad hair day? What was the reason?

It was a gross misrepresentation made by an important public figure purely for the purposes of political spin. That is what this government is all about. That is what this Prime Minister is all about. That is what this Deputy Prime Minister is all about, because she also participated in this sport of misleading the Australian people, making the same false claims, going on with the same tripe. The people of Australia will judge them for that. You would never have seen Peter Costello get figures so drastically wrong as we saw our Treasurer and our Deputy Prime Minister do just yesterday. For what reason were they misleading the Australian people? Purely because the Hawker Britton book said: ‘We’ve got to have a diversion, we’ve got to have one of those weapons of mass distraction. We’ll create some figures. Where can we get them from? We can’t find them from the Taxation Office because those figures don’t support the claim, so what we’ll do is find a US student who produces figures that aren’t even for Australia, they’re for Australia and New Zealand, but that’ll do. There are some published numbers out there on the internet, we’ll bring them in and we’ll try and spin a yarn.’ Well, they have been caught out pretty badly using figures from a student, not from the Australian tax office, that were not even solely for Australia—and the members opposite try and talk about truth and honesty. What sort of ridiculous argument is that? Thirteen per cent? That’s not far out! I guess that is Swan-onomics.

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