Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Perhaps it could be Bob Hawke, the member for Herbert helpfully suggests. Bob Hawke was indeed good at keeping his promises; something which, I am afraid, cannot be said for this Prime Minister or this government. Those words were uttered on 22 August 2011 as part of a litany of statements by the member for Warringah in the lead-up to the last election. He made statements such as, 'We want taxes going down, not going up.' And statements such as, 'The one thing that people will never have to suffer under a coalition government is an unnecessary new tax, a tax that could easily be replaced by savings found from the budget.' That was what the member for Warringah said in parliament on 10 February 2011 when speaking about the flood levy to rebuild Queensland. The coalition opposed the flood levy. They thought those savings could be found from within the budget. But they do support the fuel tax. That is despite the statement by the member for Warringah on 10 May 2012, when he said that people who work hard should 'not be hit with higher taxes'. On 16 August 2011, 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. If this government had any honesty, any decency, that is what we would have: an election now.

That was repeated again in this parliament on 14 September 2011:

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

If the Prime Minister is to stick to his pre-election claims, then, apparently, Australia should be going to the polls, because that is exactly what has been foisted on the Australian people—an increase in the fuel tax in direct contravention of the Prime Minister's pre-election promises. As the Prime Minister said before the election, on 19 September 2012:

The time for big-spending, big-taxing, big-fibbing government has gone.

I am afraid the Australian people do not see it that way. They see a government that is raising their taxes and fibbing to them all the way. And worse than the promise-breaking is that the government is trying to mislead the Australian people, with the prevaricating we have heard this week about the cuts to the ABC and the claims that you did not have to listen to the member for Warringah when he was campaigning to be Prime Minister—no, that was just window-dressing—what you needed to do instead was to look at the carefully crafted words of the member for Wentworth beforehand.

Clearly, when the member for Warringah told Australians on 9 August 2013 that the only party that was going to increase taxes after the election was the Labor Party, he was misleading Australians.

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