Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

As we speak about what is, in effect, a disaster relief measure, I would like to add my voice to those who have already been heard in this chamber expressing their sympathy for and condolences to our New Zealand brothers and sisters. In particular, I would like to send out my greetings to the members of the New Zealand Defence Force, good friends of mine who I know will be very busily engaged right now.

It is very disappointing to be here participating in this debate on the Tax Laws Amendment (Temporary Flood Reconstruction Levy) Bill 2011 and cognate bill. This should have been a moment in time when the chamber united behind the flood levy measure. It is extremely disappointing that, instead of sending that message of unity and cooperation, we are divided and engaging in partisan political debate over this issue. It really does underline what we are experiencing with the coalition leadership of the Leader of the Opposition. I know there are many fine and decent men and women on the opposite benches. I have great respect, of course, for the member for Wentworth, who is at the table, and many others of his colleagues. We are seeing now, I believe—I hope—a line being drawn on the descent we have seen the Leader of the Opposition take his party and his coalition on.

I must confess that I am a fan of the TV series Red Dwarf, which was on the ABC. It was a wonderful series. The other day, the Leader of the Opposition put me in mind of something: it was an episode of Red Dwarf that described a creature that was a shape-changing, parasitic mutant known as a polymorph, a creature that fed on negative emotions. In this parliament, we have now seen the incarnation of the polymorph in the Leader of the Opposition. He is a man who trawls this country seeking out and feeding on negative emotions, and seeking to play partisan political point-scoring with those negative emotions. He has nothing to contribute, no policy direction to offer this country, and this discussion on the flood levy is a prime example of that. I do hope that we have now reached the limit of the direction that the Leader of the Opposition had been taking, with the well-timed and commendable revolt we are seeing on his back bench.

In relation to the specific targets of the flood reconstruction levy, getting out and touring the flood affected areas of New South Wales was part of my responsibilities this summer—towns like Dubbo, Parkes, Narromine, Wee Waa, Narrabri and all of those places in New South Wales that have suffered tremendous damage to infrastructure, including damage to roads and bridges. We saw a bridge near Wagga where the bridge itself was still intact but the approaches on both sides had been completely washed away, leaving a major engineering challenge.

This will require a major effort. It is not just that crops were destroyed in the process of this flood and damage done to farming properties. For the crops that still remain, the challenge is to get those crops to market and, for the future crops that will be planted, to take advantage of the ground moisture we now enjoy. It is very critical that we tackle this infrastructure challenge.

That challenge cannot be met by any other means than by the Commonwealth weighing in heavily to assist the states. This measure of course, bringing in this levy, will help us do that and perform at the same time the very necessary task of enabling us to return to surplus in 2012-13. I should emphasise that the money that is being deployed through this levy and through the overall sums that will be used in this challenge also include areas outside Queensland and those areas in New South Wales that I mentioned. At this stage the proportional amount indicated was $1 billion, but of course that will relate to the overall sums that are determined when the damage is fully assessed. So those areas in New South Wales and even in my own electorate stand to gain from that investment and that deployment of funds.

Returning to surplus in 2012-13 is extremely important. It is important for the reasons that we should well understand of taking the pressure off private capital out in the open marketplace and thereby contributing to good sound fiscal policy and alleviating pressure on interest rates at the same time. It sends a very important signal to the market and to all those out there who are seeking capital, that the government is going to play its part. But also, very importantly, we have to understand that we cannot foresee the future, and nothing should have illustrated that more effectively than the follow-on cyclone that we endured following the floods. So what lies out there now for us in the future, what further challenges will there be? It is important that we return to surplus as soon as possible in order to meet those potential challenges, those challenges that we cannot foresee even today. So it is important on those particular grounds to return to surplus.

It is an interesting phenomenon to see the opposition debating the question of levies. It has been well aired in this chamber that the Howard government certainly resorted to this measure many times in its lifetime. Of course we know about the superannuation surcharge from the 1996 to 2005 of 15 per cent, and the gun buyback levy has been referred to many times. But very interestingly, when you look at the subsequent levies that were introduced, in 1999 to May 2006 there was the stevedoring levy which was introduced when the government was in surplus to the tune of $4.3 billion at the time. We had the milk levy in relation to dairy deregulation, which was imposed over a period of 10 years and which raised effectively the same amount of money that we are talking about in relation to this flood levy. At the time, the government was in surplus to the tune of $13 billion. The East Timor levy that was proposed in 2000 was also in the context of a government surplus of $13 billion. The Ansett levy that was introduced in September 2001 through to June 2003 was when the government was in surplus to the tune of $5.9 billion. From January 2003 to November 2006, the sugar levy that was imposed was when the government was in surplus to the tune of $7.4 billion. So the Howard government was a regular resorter to levies even when they were significantly in surplus. It is highly hypocritical of them to take issue with this measure at this time in the context of the current budgetary situation we are in.

Further to that, in my own portfolio responsibilities I am charged with signing off on increases in levies in relation to specific industry support. I think it might interest the chamber to know that we in fact have about 70 industry levies in place at this time that the government is engaged in with sectors of industry—in other words, a levy is raised from the industry and the government provides matching funding. It has been an excellent mechanism for improving the research and development of many of our sectors. They are wide and varied levies. There are 29 in the horticultural sector—almonds, avocados, bananas, cherries, pears, chestnuts. You can go through an extremely long list. There are nine grain levies, 14 livestock levies, three wine levies and about 17 other different ones including a queen bee levy—which maybe Julie Bishop might be interested in, but there are certainly a wide range of levies there that have been in place—

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