Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I get more sense off a bunch of crows on a power line than those two! The person earning $80,000 is paying $1,400 less this year, even including the flood levy, than they would have paid under the Howard government. So we have been delivering real change. For instance, a single person without children earning $39,000 in 2007-08 and $44,500 in 2010-11 has seen their tax wedge fall by 1.7 percentage points to 14.9 per cent in 2010-11. These are real numbers, and the real numbers are confronting to the opposition.

We are doing other things in the field of social justice which should not be overlooked. The most important thing you can do for social justice is create a job. If an Australian has a job they have a chance of engaging in the housing market and of educating their kids: they have a stake in society. Since Labor has been elected, 752,000 jobs have been created. When you look at what has been happening around the world in the global financial crisis, 30 million jobs have gone; yet in Australia under a Labor government 752,000 jobs have been created. We have increased the family payments for families with teenagers between 16 and 19. As any parent with a teenager between 16 and 19 knows, they do not get any cheaper the older they get.

The government is also proposing a particularly equitable piece of law, and we put the bill into the parliament yesterday, but the coalition is regrettably opposing it. There are 3½ million Australians who earn less than $37,000 a year, which means that they either pay no tax or 15 per cent in income tax. But what happens with their superannuation, since superannuation is taxed concessionally at 15 per cent? That 15 per cent concessional tax is all right if you pay a higher rate in income tax, because there is then an advantage to put your money in super at the lower tax rate. The problem is that, if you are one of the 3½ million lower income Australians, you do not get the benefit of that tax concession. So what are we going to do? We are going to abolish it. What will happen is that, if you earn less than $37,000 a year, you will no longer pay tax on your superannuation—it will all go into your superannuation.

It does not just stop there, though. We have now extended and developed the education tax refund, providing more help for families with the cost of educating their kids. the education tax refund has been extended to include school uniforms and a range of other incidental costs. These are the costs parents have, and they are DNA-hardwired to pay them for their kids because they want their kids to get the best start in life. What we are doing is helping them in that process of educating the kids.

Having said that we get the big calls right, that we balance the books, that we identify the existing problems and are fixing them, that we are into social justice and that we are making sure Australians have an opportunity to cope in an ever-changing world, we must look at some of the coalition myths. Getting criticism from the opposition about economic management seems a little rich when I look at their costing errors. In the election period last year they had a $10.6 billion costing black hole. The opposition need to know that taxpayers' money is not monopoly money; it is real money, and you should not have black hole. Some of their costing errors—

Mr Briggs interjecting—

Perhaps if the member for Mayo spoke less and listened more there would be a chance that he would learn more. I apologise—I did not mean to imply he was learning! Their costing errors included spending $3.3 billion from the nation-building funds on local roads and not accounting for it in their numbers. They did not account for $356 million in their employment participation policy. They did not allow for $2.5 billion. They reduced what is known as the conservative bias allowance, which Treasury says does not realise any actual budgetary savings. Treasury and finance have identified literally hundreds of millions of dollars.

Mr Robb interjecting—

I understand why the member for Goldstein attempts to interrupt me: he is embarrassed because he is in charge of this economic smash-up—this economic road crash.

Let us have a look at the final thing which, I would submit, shows that we are the party capable of economic management. We are the only party with an innovative and positive view of the future. If you have not been convinced already—by our balancing the books, by our working at fixing the problems, by our propositions of social justice and by the litany of opposition costing errors which are more like something done by Homer Simpson than by a serious opposition—then I submit to you three points among the collection of propositions that we are advancing for the future of Australia.

Firstly, we want to lift compulsory superannuation to 12 per cent. The opposition know it is a good idea—they get 15 per cent or defined benefit. The first rule of leadership is: don't just say it; practice what you preach. If they are willing to take 15 per cent for themselves, why can't the rest of Australia get 12 per cent?

It does not stop there. Secondly, we are now spending, as a down payment on the future, $3 billion on productivity through training apprentices and training trainees. Nearly half a million Australian people are on the path of apprenticeships and training.

There is a third idea which, I submit to you, demonstrates our capacity to manage the economy on behalf of the society as a whole. I think a lot of people on the Labor side know what that is: the proposition of a national disability insurance scheme.

Mr Robb interjecting—

The opposition interjects on such a good idea—very heartless. A national disability insurance scheme is a long overdue proposition for this nation. Why should someone, because they are born with an impairment or acquire it in a blink of an eye, live a second-class life in Australia? Why should their carers live a second-class life? This party of government, this Labor Party, understand that it is now time to set right the wrong that has been occurring for a very long time in Australia. We are establishing the foundations for a national disability insurance scheme. We are working on a national injury insurance scheme. We are determined to make sure that two million Australians with profound or severe disability and their carers finally get included in Australian society on an equal basis. (Time expired)

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