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

If you cut the subsidy or support for private health insurance then private health insurance premiums for everyday Australians go up. If you increase the taxes on luxury cars, the cost of luxury cars goes up. It goes on and on: ethanol taxes go up, LPG taxes go up—you see, the Labor Party does not get it. Bob Hawke used to say, 'That Craig Emerson; he's a smart guy.' Bob! What the hell has happened? He's not that smart, because he does not understand that when you introduce taxes, someone has to pay—and it is the same person out there: the worker, the battler, who has to pay the higher taxes, and nothing illustrates that better than the carbon tax. The carbon tax increases the cost of everything.

And in a female impersonation of Comical Ali, the Prime Minister stands before us in this place and says solemnly, 'Oh, only a few hundred people pay the carbon tax.' She just does not get it. Now this government are addicted to a new wave of spending. They are announcing from that great money tree—that great money tree that sits in the Prime Minister's courtyard out the back of Parliament House—that this government is going to deliver bigger surpluses. They are going to deliver their first surplus, they claim. And it is going to do that by spending more money! How are they going to do that? It is quite a wonderful formula that would deliver that. The starting point is that the government are going to spend up to $8 billion, maybe $10 billion, a year on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. But they will not tell us where the money is coming from.

The government now have a $2.1 billion blow-out on trying to hold back asylum seekers coming on boats, but they will not tell us where the money is coming from. The government are planning to deliver $26 billion more for schools in Australia, but the government will not tell us where the money is coming from. The government are going to build 12 homemade submarines in Adelaide. They claim they can do that. That is $36 billion, but they will not tell us where the money is coming from.

Well, before the last election, they did not tell us where the money was coming from. They did not tell us about the carbon tax—the tax that dare not speak its name before the election. In fact it was denied. And now we know why: because that is what Labor does. It dresses mutton up as lamb. It claims things are savings when in fact they are higher taxes, and higher taxes means that everyday Australians have less money in their pocket to meet the needs of their families. And now we have the Treasurer and the Prime Minister playing this rather cute game. They are saying, 'We will find the savings through our massive new promises'. As they define the term 'savings' it means higher taxes. The Treasurer was on Radio National yesterday and he claimed that they found $33 billion of savings in the budget. It just so happens that $16 billion of that $33 billion was increased tax to about 20 taxes. That is what the Labor Party call savings: increasing taxes or introducing new taxes; and of course they would define the carbon tax as the greatest saving of all!

This is a government that is running out of money, and it is going to come to an ugly end. We know they are digging deep not only into the pockets of Australians now, with a carbon tax and a mining tax—oh, that mining tax, let us not forget. The intention of the original mining tax was to slow down the mining boom. And it is working. BHP announced today that they will not proceed with a full-scale Olympic Dam in South Australia.

So this government's mining tax is at work, this government's mining tax is doing its job: it is slowing down investment in mining in Australia. And the carbon tax will obviously have a significant role to play in helping to increase the cost of mining in Australia, because they are—by their own admission and the admission of the government—significant carbon dioxide emitters.

Not only are the government taxing today, not only are they taxing tomorrow, but they are also engaging in retrospective taxing. In the last few weeks, the Labor Party have introduced retrospective tax legislation on transfer pricing, with a value of $1.9 billion, and in relation to company consolidations, worth $6 billion. They are trying to go back and tax yesterday—taxing yesterday, when people were legitimately complying with the law as it stood at that time and as it stands today. The government are taxing today, taxing tomorrow and now taxing yesterday. Why? Because they are a wasteful government. There is no money.

Dr Martin Parkinson, the government's own Treasury secretary, warned only a few days ago:

… the days of large surpluses being delivered by buoyant tax receipts are behind us.

Yet the government are still making big spending announcements. The previous Secretary of the Treasury, Dr Henry, said in the last few days:

… the Australian tax base simply will not deliver what people expect of it …

You don't want to put yourself on a burning platform.

Well, these are the pyromaniacs of spending! They are the ones going out there with new spending promises, desperate to build up the primary vote of the Labor Party and save the Prime Minister's leadership. They are doing it with big spending announcements, but they are not prepared to be upfront with the Australian people about how they are going to pay for it.

And why would the Australian people give them $1 extra of tax, after we have had blow-outs on everything? The National Broadband Network was meant to cost $4.7 billion, as they said at the 2007 election. It is now closer to $50 billion. And you know what? It is passing six homes a day. Dick Adams and I could doorknock faster than that! The NBN is going at a rate of six homes a day. There were the pink batts, where $2.4 billion was wasted. There were the $900 cheques, where they sent 16,000 cheques to dead people—to stimulate the Australian economy. Go figure. I don't think sending 16,000 cheques for $900 to dead people was particularly stimulating! But they outdid themselves by sending 27,000 cheques for $900 to people overseas to try and stimulate the Australian economy. No wonder John Key said to me that that was the best thing he had had happen to New Zealand for a while. The government have had an $850 million blow-out on solar panels and $300 million wasted on the Green Loans Program. They spent $4.7 billion try to stop the boats and now they want an extra $2.1 billion. They had a billion-dollar blow-out on computers in schools, a $1.7 billion blow-out on school halls, and now they want $26 billion extra for schools. They are saying they can do it all. They can spend the money. They do not have to raise taxes—well, it is more that they do not have to tell you about the new taxes.

This government will be judged at the next election not just on its dishonesty but also on its honesty. And there is no honesty in this government. It is a government that is bereft of principles. It is a government that is wicked and malevolent towards everyday Australians. It is a government that is indifferent to the plight of the families and workers of Australia. And it is a government that will be thrown out because, when it comes to trust and honesty, this government gets a fail. (Time expired)

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