Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Not Barry O'Farrell; Barry Sullivan, the same sort of bloke. So quickly we forget, do we not? Senator Sullivan admitted in front of 100 business leaders that in fact there is no budget crisis. An hour later he went to the Ipswich Trade Training Centre, opened it and said how wonderful it is, where $5 million of federal money will allow up to 5,000 young people access to skills and training, partnering with industry—HIA, Apprenticeships Queensland, skilled tech, the railways et cetera. He said, 'Isn't this great, fantastic! We should do more of this.' But they canned it in the budget—$950 million gone.

They will say one thing in their electorates and across the states and territories and they will do another thing in this place. The hypocrisy in relation to this from the coalition is rank. They know that the debt and deficit in this country was about one-seventh of the debt and deficit in advanced economies throughout the world. They know we had a AAA credit rating. They also know we had low tax to GDP. In fact, look at the budget papers. You will see across the forward estimates the footprint of a bigger government under the coalition than it would have been under Labor.

Like households, they have made choices in relation to this. We made choices on the NDIS, on Gonski, on Building an Education Revolution and on education funding. They said opposite that there was a unity ticket in education, but across the forward estimates they have cut $80 billion out of health and education. If you do not believe me, look at what the premiers have said in relation to this issue. Campbell Newman, the Premier of Queensland, has made it crystal clear that he does not like it. Denis Napthine, the Victorian Liberal Premier, has made it clear that he does not like it. And Mike Baird, the New South Wales Premier, has made it very clear that he does not like it either. So it is a unity ticket for those opposite and a unity ticket for the state premiers who represent the parties that they represent saying something very different.

On this side of the chamber, we believe that we should support households. That is why we have taken attitudes in relation to excise, pensions and a whole range of things that we are opposed to. But we say to those opposite, go back to your electorates and do your mobile offices, your street stalls and your listening posts et cetera and speak to your people, and remind them about what you said and what you campaigned on before the election. Remember the crystal clear statements of the then Leader of the Opposition. In August 2011, the then Leader of the Opposition and now Prime Minister outlined the exact requirement before a government raised a tax. He said:

A very clear message is going out from the Australian people to this government: there can be no tax collection without an election.

He was so convinced he repeated his rhyming rally cry a few weeks later in September:

I say to this Prime Minister: there should be no new tax collection without an election.

If Australians were not convinced by this promise of no new taxes under a coalition government, he offered this sweetener in March 2012:

What you'll get under us are tax cuts without new taxes.

It does not get much plainer than that. The then Leader of the Opposition kicked off his campaign on 6 August 2013 and said:

Taxes will always be lower under a Coalition government.

And on 9 August 2013, he said:

The only party which is going to increase taxes after the election is the Labor Party.

That has not been proven to be true, has it? It is the case that households make decisions. Mums and dads, pensioners and self-funded retirees make decisions. They make choices about what they spend money on. They make those decisions every day.

One thing that I find really galling about this is that those coalition members opposite who are going to affect these 400,000 taxpayers with a $3.1 billion tax to their back pockets are the same people who opposed the flood levy that helped reconstruct my community and helped reconstruct Queensland. They came into this place and voted against it time and time again. They have the temerity to bring this legislation before the chamber and force people to pay increased taxes but do not have the integrity to actually vote for a flood levy to reconstruct Queensland.

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