Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

It is good to have the chance to discuss this important piece of legislation and also to place this legislation in the context of the terrible disaster which has befallen so many areas of our country. Over this summer of disasters we have seen appalling damage first to the crops and settlements of the Riverina before Christmas, then in Central Queensland in the early part of the new year we saw the explosive floods in Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley behind Brisbane. Brisbane itself along with Ipswich suffered major inundation and much of northern Victoria was an inland sea in the middle of January. Finally, we had the devastation of Cyclone Yasi, which almost blew to bits the town of Tully and other settlements in Far North Queensland.

It has been a shocking summer. In addition to the disasters that I have mentioned there has been serious flooding in Western Australia and significant flooding in northern New South Wales and in other parts of the Murray-Darling Basin as the floodwaters pass from Queensland over the border. But, while we saw terrible damage from nature, as always we saw the grit and the stoicism of the Australian people and we saw the professionalism of the emergency services aided and assisted by various municipal offices and the city and local councils of the affected areas. It has well been said that, over this summer of disasters, we saw the worst from Mother Nature but we saw the best from human nature.

Unfortunately, in the aftermath of the disaster we have also seen a federal government acting in character. The character of this government is when it sees a problem to reach for a tax. Plainly, the Commonwealth government must spend what is reasonably necessary to assist flood reconstruction and to assist the victims of these terrible floods and storms. On that point this House is entirely united. We must spend the money. The only difference between the government and the opposition is over how that money is raised. The government believes that the money should be raised through a tax—a new levy to raise $1.8 billion. The opposition believes that the money should be raised through additional savings. Plainly, savings are available. When the Prime Minister went to the National Press Club to first announce this measure she conceded when asked a question by a journalist that, if the costs ultimately were more than $5.6 billion, further savings would be found. So there is a clear admission by the Prime Minister and other senior members of the government that there is scope for further savings.

The coalition did not shrink from the task of identifying savings that would have saved Australians from this additional tax. We were criticised for it but still we held firm in our resolve to find the appropriate savings. The government was not so resolved. As soon as people started to criticise the savings measures that the government had announced, they were dumped. On the one hand, you have an opposition which does not shirk the task of finding savings and having found savings sticks with them; on the other hand, you have a government which will not find the full quantum of savings and the instant it is subjected to pressure goes to water and dumps the relevant savings.

One of the worst aspects of this tax is that it came in the wake of the most impassioned pleas by the Prime Minister to millions of Australians to give generously. She asked the Australian people to give of their hearts to the suffering people of Queensland. Having told them that they should give generously, she then proposes to coerce them with a new tax. That is so contrary to the normal Australian spirit. The concept of mateship that the Prime Minister evoked was simply out of place in the consideration of a new tax. Mates help each other; they do not tax each other. Mateship comes from people; it does not come from governments. Mateship is what people choose to do; it is not what they are forced to do.

I would be the last person to attribute bad faith to any member of this parliament. I would be the last person to bandy accusations of bad faith against the government. But it is hard to avoid, in this case, the suspicion that what the government has tried to do is exploit people’s goodwill towards flood victims to help it out of a fiscal hole. If there is any grounds to that suspicion, it demonstrates that this is a government that is not worthy of the trust and confidence of the Australian people.

The Prime Minister’s speech introducing this new tax was really quite remarkable. She claimed that in some way this new tax was honouring the victims of the floods. Really and truly, we honour the victims of the floods by rebuilding Queensland and the other states and the other communities that have been impacted. We honour the victims of the floods by being a competent parliament and a competent government. We do not honour them by imposing an unnecessary new tax. The Prime Minister in her speech spoke of the levies that had been introduced by a former government. Let me say this: there is a world of difference between a levy imposed by a government striving to achieve and maintain a budget surplus and a levy imposed by a government which has been recklessly spending taxpayers’ money and has given Australians the biggest deficits on record. There is a world of difference between a levy imposed by a government that could be trusted with the taxpayers’ money and a government that cannot.

This is a government which is already notorious for its waste of public money. The blow-out in the school halls program exceeds the total quantum to be raised by this new tax. This government has become an absolute byword for waste and mismanagement, and it knows it. That is why, along with announcing this new levy, the government announced the appointment of former finance minister in the Howard government Mr Fahey to oversee the spending of this money. They knew that the Australian public would not trust them to handle money, so what did they do? They resorted to appointing a Howard government minister to lend some respectability to their spending program. What is wrong with Lindsay Tanner? What is wrong with another former Labor finance minister to help—

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