Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The education tax refund—the ETR—was designed to help with the cost of educating primary and secondary school children. Eligible parents, carers, legal guardians and independent students were able to get money back on education expenses. These included items such as computers, educational software, textbooks and stationery. Under the education tax refund system you may have got 50 per cent of your money back. If you got family tax benefit part A, you were probably eligible for the ETR. There were also some payments which prevented your receiving FTB part A but still entitled you to receive the refund.

This new legislation has abandoned any pretence of being about offsetting education costs; it is simply a sugar hit to create a diversion from the increased bills and costs that will occur as a result of the carbon tax while families go about their everyday lives. Labor are recklessly promoting this measure by saying that families will be eligible for the money even if they lose their receipts, but they have failed to explain that every eligible family will get the money regardless of whether they keep their receipts and that they can spend the money on anything they like. It is funny that the government stood up a few weeks ago talking about how much they support small business and then gave away the one per cent tax cut they talked about while the ATO and this government insist on businesses keeping receipts and everything being accountable. A business in my electorate went under because the ATO pursued it for not having proof that payments out of the company went to superannuation funds and the people it had employed were not able to give back to the company proof that the money had gone into their accounts. The business was treated as having given a distribution and was forced into liquidation by the ATO because it did not keep receipts. The ETR was all about accountability: if you wanted to get the ETR, you had to be accountable and keep receipts. But under the new legislation you will not need to keep receipts, and that means that you will be able to spend the money on anything you like—it does not have to go to education. It can be spent on TVs—it can go to the Taiwanese economy as the $900 handouts did. The Taiwanese economy was the main beneficiary of the $900 handouts through people's purchases of TVs.

Under the ETR you needed to keep records to help you or your tax agent prepare your tax return or claim. You also needed receipts to ensure that you were able to prove your claim for expenses if you were asked by the tax office to do so. Eligible education expenses had to be listed separately on invoices. Under the ETR the eligible expenses included the cost of buying, establishing, repairing and maintaining any of the following items: home computers and laptops; computer-related equipment such as printers, USB flash drives and disability aids to assist in the use of computer equipment by students with special needs; computer repairs; home internet connections; computer software for educational use; school textbooks and other printed learning material, including prescribed textbooks, associated learning materials, study guides and stationery; and prescribed trade tools for secondary school trade courses. This system ensured that the money went to specific and important areas and was not wasted. Labor's bill will remove the cash incentive for parents to invest in their children's schooling needs. This bill put forward by the government is one of the most blatant attempts at cooking this year's budget books in order to allow Labor to protect its unofficial surplus in the next financial year, as the refund will be paid out before the end of this financial year. The education tax refund system was a regime that ensured taxpayers' money was given only to families who actually spent money on education costs. The coalition, which supports the ETR, took a policy to the last election that vastly expanded the number of school expense items that were eligible and also increased the rebate amounts. The coalition's plan would have provided a rebate to families of $1,000 for each secondary school aged child and $500 for each primary school aged child. By contrast, Labor's scheme provides only $820 for secondary school aged children and $410 for primary school aged children, leaving a family with two children—one secondary and one primary—some $270 per year worse off.

The coalition's policy at the last election delivered more money, was better targeted and went straight to those families who needed it most. While some families might benefit this year under this bill, Labor continues to borrow money and it will be the children of these families who will have to repay Labor's debt for years into the future. An eligible family with an 18-year-old in year 12 may get a sugar hit, but that will not last long, as the student will then get slammed with hundreds of dollars in compulsory student union fees—which is a topic I have spoken on at length in this place and is one of the numerous new taxes or tax increases introduced by this government.

What more and more Australians are realising about this government is that, despite all the lofty rhetoric we hear from the Prime Minister and the Treasurer day by day, this confused government continues to raise taxes and grow our national debt. Australians know that this new legislation is simply designed to distract from the carbon tax hit to families, which will go up every year. Labor is once again playing at divisive, class based politics. This is not a battlers' budget in the way that the Howard and Costello budgets were. Labor has proven time and time again that it supports recklessly throwing money away to give a handout and not a hand-up to hardworking Australians. Under this government the focus has been on dividing the Australian people as opposed to being aspirational. This government have shown time and time again that they are not behind the average aspirational Australian family. Instead, they are focused on dragging down those families who attempt to support their children with high-quality education. On this issue, Labor's track record is telling. In the 2008 budget, Labor means-tested the family tax benefit so that any family where the main income earner has income of more than $150,000 lost the benefit. In the same budget, Labor introduced a means test on the baby bonus, which meant that the baby bonus went only to families with an adjusted taxable income of $75,000 or less in the six months after the birth of a baby. This is the equivalent of an adjusted taxable income of $150,000 a year or less. I think we can all agree that a family earning this much is not rich by any standard. An income such as this translates to the combined income of a nurse and a police officer, or a teacher and a public servant. These are the people that this Labor government has shown they are willing to abandon.

I now draw the attention of the House to the numerous attacks on middle Australia from this government. In the 2009 budget, Labor attacked middle Australia by freezing the indexation for the full payment of family tax benefits A and B, the baby bonus and the dependent spouse rebate. The people who benefit from these payments are not extraordinarily rich. They are the majority of aspirational Australian families—

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