Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

It is not us that brought this issue back. You have made this an issue. You put the goods and services tax back on the agenda. It was not just backbenchers; it was leaders of your party. It was the Premier of New South Wales. It was the former Prime Minister of Australia that put this issue on the agenda. You are the ones that want to make poor and middleclass Australians pay more tax. You want to increase the GST. That is a fact. It was not us that put this issue on the agenda; it was you.

In fact, the Labor Party has been very clear and consistent with the Australian public for some time now. We took this position to the last election. We are opposed to an increase in the GST. That is Labor's position. Why? Because, when you increase the GST, you increase a regressive tax. You make poor and middle-income families in Australia pay more. That is a fact. The pensioner on a fixed income pays more every time they pay their electricity bill, pays more every time they pay their gas bill, pays more every time they pay their telephone bill. If you increase the GST, the tradie that fills up their ute every week will pay more. They will pay more every time they buy new tools. They will pay more every time they buy new work boots. If you increase the GST, families in Australia will pay more. Every time a mum goes to buy new clothes and shoes for her kids, she will pay more. Every time a mum and dad go to the movies for a night out, they will pay more. Every time they pay for their internet or their mobile phone bill, they will pay more. The GST hurts those in our society who can least afford it.

At the same time that the government are floating this idea that poor people should pay more through the GST, what are they doing to those who are well off in our community? They are giving them a tax break. They have actually given them a tax break. They got rid of the low-income superannuation contribution. You got rid of the minerals resource rent tax. In 2007, your Treasurer, Peter Costello, brought in massive tax concessions for people with more than a million dollars in their superannuation accounts—unfunded, I might add. You never funded those in the budget, did you? But you brought in those massive tax concessions, so we now have the situation where, for someone who has more than a million dollars in their superannuation account in Australia and earns interest off that balance—they are not drawing down on the balance; they just earn interest off it—say they earn $80,000 interest off that balance per year, have a guess how much tax they pay. Zero! A big fat rissole! Zero! They pay no tax. Do you think that that is fair? Do you think that you want to go and slug the pensioner, the tradie and the family more? Wake up to yourselves.

It was Labor that tried to introduce greater transparency into our taxation system. We introduced a reform that said that the wealthiest companies, which earn more than $100 million each year, should disclose to the Australian public the tax that they pay. They should disclose. They should be open and honest. But what did you do when you came to government? You got rid of it—a law in which big companies disclose the amount of money that they pay in tax. You got rid of it. You want to keep that sort of stuff secret. Apple made $6 billion in local revenue last year, and they paid $80.3 million in tax. You want to let those sorts of people off, and you want to ask pensioners, tradies and families to pay more. You are a disgrace.

See this speech in context