Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1)

notes that:

(a)

Australia’s Future Tax System Review (the ‘Henry Review’) made a large number of recommendations in relation to the system of taxation;

(b)

the Government implemented very few of the recommendations;

(c)

the Government has so far not released any of the Treasury modelling or other relevant information and advice underlying the recommendations; and

(d)

release of that information would be in the best interests of the community by facilitating a fully informed public debate about the way forward for taxation reform;

(2)

orders the Government to release within five working days from the date of this motion, all of the relevant modelling, costings, working papers and supporting information underlying the ‘Henry Review’;

(3)

requires that, from the date of this motion, no existing papers, emails or other information relating to the ‘Henry Review’ may be destroyed; and

(4)

requires the Secretary of the Treasury to warrant to the House that all relevant documentation underlying the ‘Henry Review’ has been released.

I have submitted this motion to the House as part of the new paradigm, as the Prime Minister describes it, of openness and transparency. That is what we are seeking to achieve with this motion before the House. We are doing so to try to obtain publicly and openly all of the details relating to the review of Australia’s future tax system, chaired by Dr Ken Henry, Secretary to the Treasury. He led a team of at least five people from Treasury. The report took two years to compile. It cost taxpayers over $10 million. It reviewed 1,500 submissions from all walks of life around Australia, In so doing, the committee held hearings, had discussions in various parts of Australia and submitted to the government a report of over 1,300 pages, which made 138 recommendations. The government chose to accept 2½ of the recommendations. In October 2009 the Treasurer said:

We need fundamental tax reform in this country. The Henry review is the vehicle.

He also declared it the most comprehensive inquiry into our tax system in over 50 years. He also said that the report would provide the foundations for a long-term plan for reform. If that is the case then the government should release all of the costings, all of the assumptions, all of the background working papers, all of the information that will allow Australia to have an informed debate on taxation reform for the future. The opposition proposed this during the election. We said that, within a very short period of being elected into government, we would release all of the assumptions, all of the details, all of the working papers and so on relating to the Henry review of taxation.

And why did we do so? Because, if we are going to have a serious debate about tax reform in Australia—and, as the Treasurer said, this report is the foundation for that debate—then all of the members of this House, and all of the senators, and all of the people of Australia, deserve the opportunity to be properly informed in that debate. If the work has been done and has been funded by Australian taxpayers then the work must now be revealed to the Australian taxpayers.

In the beginning of this government’s term in 2007-08 it came forward with a kaleidoscope of different changes to the taxation system. It has been the case that the Labor Party in government has chosen to introduce new taxes but not to abolish taxes. I want to remind the House of the revenue raising initiatives, which include reducing the generosity of employee share schemes; removing concessions of fringe benefits taxes; reducing the depreciation benefits for computer software; reducing tax deductions for individuals; tightening the exemption for foreign employment income; introducing the alcopops levy—what a great idea that was; increasing the luxury car tax from 25 per cent to 33 per cent; raising the tobacco excise by 25 per cent; introducing version 1 and version 2—and I would imagine version 3—of the great big tax on mining; and foreshadowing the introduction of a new tax on carbon. And do you know what, Mr Speaker? It is the case that the Labor Party says it has a framework, but most of these initiatives are not even in that framework!

So let us see the details of the framework. Let us find out what the assumptions were for the mining tax. Let us find out what the assumptions were for the government’s choice in rejecting outright a recommendation of the Henry committee to look at new and fairer taxation levels of superannuation. The government chose instead to increase the contribution of the superannuation levy from nine per cent to 12 per cent, which was specifically rejected by the Henry review. If we are going to offer the Australian people a better policy, we need to know whether the Henry review’s policy is cost-neutral or whether it would actually cost the budget significant sums of money. Why did the government reject that particular recommendation for a fairer taxation system for superannuation in preference to increasing the levy, when, according to the Treasury, the Henry review’s own recommendation would raise a similar level of national savings as that of the softer option of increasing the superannuation levy?

From our perspective tax reform is something that must be about more than increasing taxes—you have to remove taxes. When we were in government and we introduced the GST, we delivered a new tax system. At that time we removed financial institutions duty and we removed a raft of taxes such as bed taxes, the insidious wholesale sales tax, with its different levels and different applications, stamp duty in a number of areas—which the states then did not deliver on, but we certainly removed stamp duty on the transfer of shares and marketable securities. We also completely changed the reporting mechanisms for individuals and for companies so that it was simplified to a BAS statement every quarter and we reduced the amount of numbers and identifiers in the taxation system from 12 to one. In doing so there was real reform.

We had high expectations with the Henry review that there would also be real reform, so we were as disappointed as the Australian people when many of the 138 recommendations, many of them contentious and many of them also applying to the states, were rejected by the government. They chose to be agnostic on others, and they accepted only 2½ of the recommendations—and, of course, those changed as well.

The government may claim that this work is confidential and should remain unreleased. It is not implemented policy. It is not even foreshadowed policy. It is a report to the government, a comprehensive report to the government. The government have not said they are going to proceed with any single additional recommendation in the report—not one. They have not ruled out congestion taxes, but they are going to proceed with a congestion tax. Let the sunlight come in. Let the Australian people know what the government were told about tax reform, and let the Australian people be properly informed in the lead-up to the tax summit next year. It may be the case that the opposition—and I am certainly confident this will be the case—will want to go to the tax summit with an alternative policy on taxation. But we need to know what the assumptions are. We need to identify what the workings of the Treasury are that are going to assist us in providing an alternative policy for that tax summit. We intend to be constructive. Taxation at this stage is less than half of the total budget. It should be more than half of the total budget revenue, but under Labor it is less than half of the budget. But it is an area of the budget that does not receive proper attention. We spend a lot of time debating levels and areas of expenditure, but we do not necessarily, in this place or elsewhere in Australia, properly debate revenue, how it is collected and what a fair taxation system should look like. Therefore, the more we are properly informed, the better the debate will be.

So I urge the House to support this motion. I really do want this motion passed in the near future. I want the House to debate this sort of thing. It cuts to the heart of what everyone has defined this new parliament as: a parliament of transparency, a parliament of accountability, a parliament of honesty. Well, here is an issue that the government cannot hide from. It is not government policy at this stage; it is a document received—and paid for by the taxpayers. Let us get on with transparency. (Time expired)

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