Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Let's be clear. No matter what this motion pretends, this Turnbull government has never been and never will be a friend of Australian workers. It has slashed penalty rates, sacked thousands of public servants, conveniently attacked workers' pay and conditions in a consistent manner, waged war against the unions, ignored wage stagnation and argued against an increase to the minimum wage. But recently we've seen a conga line of government members lining up in this place to earnestly claim that their tax cuts will miraculously help working Australians.

I'd like to get one thing straight now. Under Labor's plan, every single Australian earning less than $125,000 will get a bigger tax cut. That's right: under Labor, every single Australian earning less than $125,000 gets a bigger tax cut than they are going to get under this Turnbull government package. This isn't an argument, a suggestion or a proposal; it's the incontestable, indisputable and undeniable truth. Under Labor's plan, people in my electorate of Newcastle—64,000 Novocastrians, in fact—will be up to $928 a year better off than they are now.

Unlike the government, Labor will deliver bigger tax cuts to the vast majority of workers, and we won't be taking the axe to health, education or public services, and we intend to be paying off debt. We'll pay off more debt than the government is proposing to. We can afford to do all of this because Labor has a very carefully targeted tax plan that costs far less than the government's plan. Labor will largely help the low- and middle-income earners in Australia. Sixty per cent of the benefits of the government's plan go to the high-income earners in this country. Under Mr Turnbull's plan, a retail worker earning $30,000 a year will get a tax cut of just $200, while a lawyer on $200,000 gets to save a staggering $7,225.

This is because the government is undertaking a radical overhaul of our tax system. If this government really cared about the plight of working Australians, it would have voted for Labor's plan, but it didn't. In fact, this government held tax cuts for low- and middle-income workers hostage, refusing to have them voted on separately, even though it knew very well Labor would have waved those through. It held them to ransom until the parliament agreed to tax cuts for people earning up to $200,000 a year. That's despite those cuts not kicking in until 2024-25.

This demonstrates the core character of the Turnbull government. No matter the policy area, no matter the issue, they will always act in the interests of the top end of town. Whether it's their $140 billion worth of tax cuts that largely go to high-income earners, their $80 billion worth of cuts for big business, multinationals and the banks or their squeals of hostility at the mere suggestion of reining in exorbitant tax breaks for the wealthy, this government can always be counted on to back in power and privilege. But, make no mistake, this reckless and damaging plan will blast a $140 billion hole in the budget, in addition to the $80 billion that the Liberals are already ripping out for the big-business tax cuts.

These breathtaking acts of economic vandalism confirm what we already knew—that the Liberals don't give a rat's about debt or deficit except, of course, when they need an excuse for vicious cuts. And that's exactly what we will see if they get their way. They'll starve the budget of revenue. Then they'll tell us that the only way forward is savage cuts to health, education and vital public services. This is nothing short of a national heist, especially given that our debt recently crashed through half a trillion under those opposite. Let's call this out; let's call it for what it is. This is a cruel hoax on the Australian people. (Time expired)

See this speech in context