Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is nice to follow the member for Swan, and I want to return to one of the things he said in his speech. He said that this budget—the Turnbull government's budget—is all about delivering on the coalition's promises. It is not delivering on that promise of no new taxes—the promise of no new taxes that was delivered by the member for Warringah, the banker of the backbench, right before the 2013 election. Instead, we have a budget that Treasurer Morrison has delivered that is going to basically ask hardworking people to pay for a $60 billion tax giveaway for big business.

I remember when the deficit levy came in—the temporary levy, as it is now called by those opposite. They call it the temporary levy, forgetting that its title is actually the deficit levy. They are saying: 'We can't change anything, because it's got the word temporary in front of it. Therefore, we have to give all these millionaires a tax break from 1 July, in 30 days time.' But, really, it was all about fixing the deficit. We still have a deficit. In fact, the deficit is even worse than the one delivered by smoking Joe Hockey in his 2014 budget. It is actually 10 times worse. How can it be fair to cut the tax of high-income earners from 1 July while at the same time increase the tax for low- and middle-income earners—in fact for 10 million Australians. The member for Swan did not mention that in his speech, I note. It is unfair to cut the take-home pay of 700,000 shift workers by up to $77 a week. These are the people who need it most, but, instead that is what the government has made a priority.

These scenarios are not scenes from a tin-pot dictatorship; this is Australia, under the Turnbull government, announcing this in its budget three weeks ago. It is an inherently unfair budget. Even though the Treasurer mentioned the words fair, fairer and fairness 10 times during his speech, we know what his approach to 'fair' really is. He is all thesaurus and no heart when it comes to fairness. This government is so out of touch. The deficit is out of control under them, and we are about to have a coalition government start its fifth year in office. There comes a time when you have to say, 'We are in control of where the ship is located.' Eventually, the bridge of the ship of state has to be grabbed by the coalition. I know they govern like they are in opposition, but the reality is they are about to start their fifth year.

We know that budgets are always about choices, and haven't we seen the Turnbull government's values crystallise in this 2017 budget?

What have we seen? They are looking after big corporations, including foreign corporations, and conglomerates, the millionaires and billionaires. This is fundamentally unfair and, dare I say, unAustralian. It is unAustralian if you are going to be attacking working Australians—10 million of them—at a time when the real wages of Australians have actually gone backwards. We have had the lowest annual wages growth on record since the ABS first published data in 1997. We have real increases of 1.9 per cent, not enough to actually cope with the cost-of-living increases.

So, if you earn $60,000 a year, you will be paying an extra $300 in tax; but, if you earn a million dollars, you get to pay $16,400 less—not more; less. That might sound fair in Point Piper, but I can tell you it sounds fundamentally unfair in Sherwood, in Fairfield, in Oxley, in Meruka, in Coopers Plains and in Runcorn. The reason millionaires will be paying less is that this government says, 'No, we can't continue this deficit levy, even though the deficit has skyrocketed under this government.' Remember that? Finance minister Senator Cormann said that the levy would 'ensure higher income Australians contribute to the budget repair'. Well, the budget still needs to be repaired. As I said, the deficit is actually almost 10 times worse than the one handed down by Joe Hockey. It is ridiculous.

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