Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The big lie at the heart of this legislation is that this rise in the Medicare levy is necessary to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We've just heard from the member for Ryan, and she quotes the Treasurer, who, according to the member, said, 'We look after our mates and those who need our support.' Well, the coalition has shamelessly sought to guilt Australian wage earners into accepting an unnecessary and unjust increase in taxation by stating that, without it, people with disability will somehow suffer from a supposedly underfunded National Disability Insurance Scheme. The coalition is exploiting the Australian people's decency. It is conning Australians by preying on their willingness to assist those in need, and for that it deserves condemnation, because the fact is that this tax rise on seven million Australian wage earners is not needed to fund the NDIS. The funds are already there. It is just that the coalition has other plans for the money, because this government's priority is not people with disability; it is not Australian wage earners; it is corporations and banks.

Over the next 10 years the coalition plans to take $40 billion from Australian wage earners with this tax rise, while at the same time giving $65 billion to banks and corporations with a tax cut. Think about that for a minute: the Australian wage earner hands $40 billion to the government and the government adds that money to its big pile of revenue. Then the government goes to the same pile of revenue, takes $65 billion out and gives that to the banks and corporations. That $40 billion is not funding the NDIS, it is funding a corporate tax giveaway. Abandon the $65 billion corporate tax handout and there will be no need for a tax rise on Australian wage earners. But we know from bitter experience that this government's focus is not on Australian wage earners; it is on looking after the big end of town.

The coalition remains wedded to the failed ideology of trickle-down economics, which contends that if you tax corporations less they will have more money to invest and that the benefits will trickle down throughout the economy. In theory it makes sense: if you tax corporations less, they'll have more money, they'll invest more and there'll be more jobs. It's a theory that has been played out in the United States for the past 40 years in real life, and it has failed. It has made a very tiny percentage of people very, very wealthy. But it has condemned vast swathes of the American people to insecure work and lower wages. It is a theory that has gutted the once-mighty American middle class, who formerly enjoyed secure work, high wages and the best living standards in the world. The American dream has become little more than a memory for millions of Americans who are now what are called the 'working poor'—people who have jobs but who don't earn enough to live well. Trickle-down economics is the cane toad of economics: it sounds good in theory but in practice it is devastating, and once introduced it is difficult to eradicate.

This unnecessary tax rise on Australian wage earners and the accompanying tax cut for corporations and banks is part of this insidious agenda. Why on earth would any Australian government seek to inflict on Australian wage earners an unnecessary new burden on their spending power? Wages in this country have been flat for more than a decade. Flat wages have helped keep inflation and interest rates low, but they have also meant that Australians' purchasing power has steadily declined in the face of rampaging power and utility bills and staggering rises in the cost of housing. Australians are at breaking point. The government's Medicare levy increase will increase the tax burden on Australians earning as little as $21,000 a year. These include people who have just had their Sunday penalty rates cut, and students and graduates, who face higher tuition fees and earlier and steeper repayments of their student debts.

I genuinely shake my head at those opposite, especially those like the Nationals—like the member at the dispatch box—who, like me and many of my Labor colleagues, represent those people earning low incomes. Those opposite think that this all makes sense—that they can keep wages flat, that they can increase taxes on wage earners, that they can cut penalty rates, that they can rein in pensioners' incomes, that they can hobble students with higher fees that must be repaid sooner and that they can wash their hands of the enormity of the affordable housing crisis—that they can do all this while at the same time backing $65 billion in corporate tax cuts. I genuinely shake my head that those opposite think the road to national prosperity lies in screwing down Australian wage earners and pensioners, and redirecting public funds to the wealthiest Australians and to banks and corporations.

The measures in this legislation would see a wage earner on $55,000 a year pay an extra $275 in tax a year. A wage earner on $80,000 would pay an extra $400 a year. These measures to raise revenue from Australians earning less than $87,000 a year come just months after the government handed revenue back to Australians earning more than $180,000 a year. So they're taxing people who earn less more and they're giving money away to those who earn more—take from those with less, give to those with more. It is the antithesis of Australian culture. Labor will seek to amend the government's measures to inject some fairness into them and we oppose them in this House.

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