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

Sorry, the Minister for Resources and Energy. As Minister for Financial Services and Regulation, I sat in that chair for three days—I think that is why it has a little sag in it—as we passed through all of that GST legislation which the Labor Party opposed root and branch. In fact, the former Prime Minister, the member for Griffith, described the day the GST came in as ‘fundamental injustice day’. He so hated the GST that he wanted to collect it himself. That is why he negotiated this health agreement.

I say to the Minister for Resources and Energy that eventually your history catches up with you. On this occasion there must be just a tinge of embarrassment at the hypocrisy of the Labor Party once so desperately opposing the GST but now wanting to take it themselves. That is how opposed the Labor Party were to the GST. They thought it was a very bad tax.

You may remember that Kim Beazley, the former member for Brand and Leader of the Opposition, said something to this effect to his caucus: ‘We are going to surf the wave of GST all the way into government.’ The members for Dunkley and Bonner remember that. If I was the Minister for Resources and Energy or the Treasurer, I would pick up the phone to the now ambassador in Washington and say, ‘Hey old mate, are you going to be embarrassed if we now try to claim the GST for ourselves given that we were so opposed it?’ In fact, the Minister for Resources and Energy here at the table voted against it. Do you remember that vote?

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