Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Western Australia) | Hansard source

It is disgraceful. We then saw the Deputy Prime Minister today talking about 'the forgotten roads'. Well, what about the forgotten state? The Deputy Prime Minister talks about infrastructure projects in every state and territory except one: Western Australia. I would love to see the Deputy Prime Minister come to Western Australia. I dare him to visit during the campaign. I'm sure that the same exemptions, in fact, that were available to Minister Dutton are also available to the Deputy Prime Minister, so if he wanted to come over he could.

Then we go to the never-ending digging into the essays, looking for this scrap—that is how hard this government has had to dig. Maybe it's that the Treasurer never said anything stupid when he was young—but he's making up for it now! This is a Treasurer described by the Australian Financial Review as 'lighter than helium', the same newspaper that revealed the member for Mackellar's plans for an inheritance tax. It is the only major party—this is from the chair of the economics committee, appointed by the Prime Minister—calling for death duties. This is spectacular. But we know that this government actually likes to float a lot of different ideas about taxes. When the Prime Minister was Treasurer he put out a plan to increase the GST. He said that increasing the GST was an 'opportunity', but then he was told off—slapped down. But this government successfully taxed young Australians when it introduced a knowledge tax to jack up the price of university degrees for Western Australians and for Australians across the board.

Then we get back to this government's deep, decades-long Liberal and National parties' entanglement with Clive Palmer. One of the jobs that this government doesn't do is stand up against Clive Palmer. At the moment, there is—I can't talk about it—a defamation case in the courts where Clive Palmer and the Premier of Western Australia are battling it out. I can assure you of this: you will never see a member of this government being sued by Clive Palmer for defamation. They have never ever stood up to Clive Palmer and they never will, because he is helping them try to get re-elected. (Time expired)

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