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

The member for Lindsay. I challenge him to confirm that half the so-called savings in the budget this year are actually tax increases. Labor are desperate for money; they are desperate for other people's money. This mob, like a bunch of good socialists, know how to spend other people's money; they never spend their own. They are so desperate for money they are raiding everything.

We understand that the government now is in the process of taking an accumulated $850 million over three years from Medibank Private. From Medibank Private, to whom people pay their private health insurance premiums and expect services in return, this government is gouging $850 million over three years. But what is of concern is that the dividends from Medibank Private exceeded their profits over the last two years. This year reports suggest the board has been asked to approve a special dividend payment of $300 million on top of an ordinary $91 million dividend. So the total dividend payment to the government is three times larger this year than Medibank Private's profit. In 2011 Medibank Private paid $434 million in dividends to the government, when the profit was only $300 million. This gouging of money is a worrying trend, because the Australian public and the millions of policy holders with Medibank Private deserve to know where the money is coming from.

The government is also tapping the Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation, taking $300 million over the next four years. This reinsurance pool provides the insurance cover against the risk of terrorism, and the government is taking money out of it to prop up its budget. The government is also taking $500 million out of the Reserve Bank. Whilst it is not unusual to get a dividend out of the Reserve Bank, I would say to you that now is not the time to be taking money out of the Reserve Bank—whilst we have this sort of volatility in international capital markets. But, no, this is the Labor way.

And it goes on. The cream on the cake is that Labor, not satisfied with the biggest deficits in Australian history, are now spending $120 billion on new promises and they have not explained to the Australian people where the money is coming from. I say to the Assistant Treasurer: show the courage today, stand at this dispatch box and explain where the $120 billion is coming from.

See this speech in context