Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

He's getting very chippy, Deputy Speaker. He must be having a bad day again.

An opposition member: It could be that half a trillion—

It could be that half a trillion dollars in gross debt that comes up tomorrow, Deputy Speaker.

An opposition member: He won't answer that question!

If I were him, I would try not to answer that question either, in fairness—as he sits over there and hides behind his colleagues and hopes that he never has to answer any questions.

Mr Sukkar interjecting—

An opposition member: We ask them. You answer them.

He seems to have this round the wrong way, but I will persevere anyway. In addition to all the questions asked by those opposite, as well as the member for Wakefield's questions about the workforce at the ASC, my question about wages and my questions about that record half a trillion dollars in gross debt which comes up tomorrow, which they are very embarrassed about, I will add some more to the pile that the assistant minister will not answer.

Those opposite wanted the budget to be all about the bank levy, as they tried to avoid the need for a banking royal commission and avoid the fact that they were giving $10 billion of a $65 billion tax cut to just four companies, the four big banks in this country. But the startling and defining feature of this budget is really how it looks after the wealthiest in our community at the expense of the most vulnerable. I mentioned the penalty rates cuts which come in on the first weekend of July—ironically, sadly, the same weekend that that tax cut comes in for high-income earners. That really is just a subset of a broader problem with this budget, a subset of the broader problem with the priorities of those opposite, which is that they will always shower largesse on the top end of town but they will always ask the weakest and most vulnerable people to carry the can for their budget failures and they will always ask people in the middle income levels of this economy to do something which they do not ask people at the highest level of income in this economy to do.

My questions for the assistant minister are really around the unfairness of the budget, not just the $65 billion tax cut, of which $10 billion goes to the four big banks, but also that personal income tax cut which sees someone on $1 million get a $16,400 tax cut on 1 July. My questions are really around why we would do this. On the $65 billion tax cut, could the assistant minister inform the chamber what the Treasury estimates or the Finance estimates are for the impact that will have on the economy? We are told that the first tranche of tax cuts only has a 0.2 per cent impact on the economy, and that is only when fully implemented. By the government's own numbers, we are told that the full $65 billion tax cut will only boost GDP by one per cent over 20 years—something like 0.05 per cent a year, which does not strike me as extraordinary bang for your buck.

At the same time they are giving away that $65 billion, they have record debt, record net debt, record gross debt and interest being paid on that by Australian working people. At the same time they are doing that, they are saying: 'We can't find that $22 billion for schools. We can't afford that, but we can afford the $65 billion for BHP and the big banks. We can't afford to unfreeze Medicare properly and immediately. That has to wait. We can't afford to ensure we have access to a university, particularly for working-class kids'—the type of kids I represent—'but, generally, we have to jack up the costs of university because we have a problem here. But we're still going to give away that $65 billion. We're still going to give away those income tax cuts by letting the deficit levy lapse.' This is at the same time that they are asking people under $87,000 a year to pay more tax.

I would like the Assistant Minister to the Treasurer to tell us: is it true that someone on $50,000 will pay $250 more tax a year when the tax hike comes in at the same time a millionaire will pay $16,000 less? Someone on $60,000 will pay $300 more, someone on $70,000 will pay $350 more and someone on $80,000 will pay $400 more tax a year at the same time that those at the top end get an extraordinarily large tax cut. Really, the question—and the core problem of this budget—is: how can the members on that side of the House be so out of touch? How can they possibly describe the situation I have just outlined as fair?

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