Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

When it comes to Labor and taxes, they're unbelievable. They really are. We all remember the Paul Keating tax cuts, the L-A-W law tax cuts. We remember those. The Labor Party thinks that the ears of Australians are painted on and that they never hear what it says. But they do hear what it says and they do see what it does, and what it does is make big promises. Labor even promised to put the tax cuts in law. L-A-W was the famous phrase of Paul Keating. But we know they don't believe it, they don't do it and they don't follow through. They are completely unbelievable.

The other thing we've learnt from the Labor Party today is that Labor does not have a plan for personal taxes. They have no plan to deal with bracket creep. They have no plan to make taxes simpler. They have no plan to deal with people who are able to do better over time and ensure that bracket creep is addressed. They've got no plan for that. All we've heard from the Labor Party is some sort of Dutch auction on tax. We're not going to get involved in that, because we have a responsible plan. We have an affordable plan. We have a structured plan to deal with structural problems in the tax system.

What you're hearing from the Labor Party is what you always hear from the Labor Party before an election: 'We'll do this. We'll do that.' And you all know what happens after the election. If they're elected, it all turns to custard, absolute custard. Whether it's with their forecasts of revenue that we heard or the four surpluses announced tonight, none of them ever turn up. This is why they're completely unbelievable when it comes to tax, deficits, surpluses, budgets and debts—all of these things. They are just completely unbelievable when it comes to tax and the economy.

I'll tell you the other thing about this mob. What they're not telling Australians as they put this forward tonight, and what they didn't tell them the other night, is who's paying for this. Who's paying for this at the end of the day? The reason we're not supporting these amendments is that we don't support all of the other taxes that they're putting on Australians to go around and make these big-noting promises. Let's run through what some of those are. What the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer say is that they're paying for this by pulling bigger taxes out of big companies, but let's look at what the budget and forward estimates show. What the budget forward estimates show is that, over this period to 2021-22, the biggest tax increase is not reversing the enterprise tax plan at all. It's not that at all.

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