Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to talk on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living Tax Cuts) Bill 2024. As we have said, the coalition will be supporting this bill but, obviously, moving amendments as well.

I want to make it really clear that, if the previous coalition government hadn't legislated for three stages of tax cuts—the first two stages primarily for lower income earners, and the third stage for middle- to upper-income earners—and the third stage wasn't about to come into force on 1 July this year, there would be no way that this new government would be legislating any type or form of tax cut. I think we need to lay that out.

It's also interesting that the previous member got up and talked about the 'Morrison tax cuts'. They were bipartisan. They were the Morrison and Albanese—or whoever was the leader: Shorten—tax cuts, because both sides of the parliament voted for these tax cuts.

But it's not in Labor's DNA to support tax cuts. It's not in their DNA to legislate tax cuts. They're having to do this because these cuts were legislated. They said they would support tax cuts, so now, obviously, they are putting tax cuts through, but certainly not the ones that everyone voted for.

There would be more respect for the government if the government hadn't said a hundred times that they were going to support the tax cuts as legislated—if the government of today, at the last election, had not said that they were going to support the tax cuts as legislated. The thing that has to be acknowledged—and the other side would like to say, 'Nothing to see here'—is that they have misled the Australian public about what they were going to do and what they were going to say.

Members, one after the other, are getting up and saying, 'Oh, there's been a change in circumstances.' The previous member mentioned the COVID pandemic. That happened a few years ago. It was only three weeks ago that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer said they were going to support the stage 3 tax cuts as had been legislated. The pandemic happened a long time ago, so, when we're dragging stuff back from two or three years ago—and that's why circumstances have changed—why weren't the Prime Minister and the Treasurer saying, three or four weeks ago, 'No, we are going to reconsider the legislated stage 3 tax cuts'? Why weren't they saying that then? Why weren't all these amazing things that have transformed the world looked at: 'We've had to revisit it and we've had to look at it'? Why weren't the Prime Minister and the Treasurer saying, just three weeks ago, 'We're going to relook at this.' They weren't saying that. They were saying, 'No, we're supporting the legislated tax cuts, as we supported them a number of years ago.' So what an amazing furphy it is when the government says: 'There have been all these changed circumstances. Things have developed. You look at new evidence when it happens.' But there was no new evidence three weeks ago—there were no new circumstances three weeks ago—about why they were going to change what was legislated.

An integral part of this is integrity. An integral part of this is whether you have misled the Australian public or you are taking them for mugs, saying one thing and then just saying: 'Look, everything has changed. What I said two weeks ago isn't the same.' That is a really important point in what we're talking about today, and that's why we have to remind the Australian public that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer misled and deceived the Australian public 100 times. That cannot be waived over. That cannot be forgotten. That cannot be justified by something that happened two or three years ago.

Quite rightly, the Australian public now need to question everything this Prime Minister says, everything this Treasurer says and everything this government says because you can't trust them. You can't rely on them. You can't say, 'No, the Prime Minister said his word is his bond.' Well, he's already proved that's it not. Nothing now is ruled out from them saying, 'But, no, circumstances have changed,' or saying, 'Something happened four years ago, and we've changed our mind on that, even though we said two weeks ago that we were still committed to it.' That is why, with these words that we're now hearing from the government on things like negative gearing and a whole lot of the tax policies, the Australian public cannot trust this government.

I don't think you need much of a crystal ball to predict the next one. I'd say that the next thing this government is going to look at is negative gearing. The words they're using, they're not saying yes or no. They're just saying: 'It has not been considered. It has not been looked at.' Then suddenly it's like, 'Because of changing circumstances and because of this and because of that, we've changed what we said to the Australian public at the last election.' That is what is exceptionally disappointing about this.

It was interesting: I listened quite closely to the member for Kooyong when she got up and spoke. She is someone who came into this parliament as a Teal and talking about integrity, talking about transparency and talking about the fact that we have to be open with the Australian public. I'll withdraw this if I'm corrected tomorrow, but, from what I heard her say, not once did she call out the government that they had deceived the Australian public at the last election. This is the election that she came in on, and the government have changed their position. All I heard was why she thought this was a good idea. I respect that if she believes it, but call this government out. You can agree with the government about what they are doing—I don't have a problem with that if that's your opinion—but you have to call the government out on that. They have deceived, I believe, the Australian public.

I wouldn't say that if they had mentioned it six months ago. If the Prime Minister got up six months ago and said: 'Look, there are a lot of things that have gone on. There's a cost-of-living crisis'—well, six months ago he wasn't talking about the cost of living; he was talking about the Voice. But, if he had got up six months ago and talked about the cost of living and said, 'Look, we are going to revisit stage 3 and we are going to look at this and redesign it in a way that we think would be more targeted,' you would have to respect that. I would respect that. I'd say: 'Okay, you said six months ago that you were going to redesign this. There are changing conditions, and there are circumstances that you think you want to retarget and redefine in it.' I would respect that. You can't not respect that. I would have liked to have seen it at the last election—even six months ago. To wait six months, I think that you'd respect that. But to say three weeks ago that you're not going to change it and then do that three weeks later is unacceptable to the Australian public. That's the issue here; this cannot be forgotten, and it won't be forgotten by the Australian public.

There were a lot of tricky, sneaky words going on here, too. Today in question time there was talk about when Treasury looked at this. When did the department look at this? Why did the department start looking at this? Suddenly there was this inference in looking at the words: it was almost: 'Oh, no, Treasury started looking at this by themselves. This wasn't directed by the Treasurer or any minister and this wasn't directed by the Prime Minister. Treasury, just as a department—just themselves—creatively started to come up with different scenarios.' Okay, so there was no conversation between the minister, the Treasurer, the Prime Minister and Treasury to look at different scenarios about what other things could be done or what parameters there could be around the stage 3 tax cuts? This was done autonomously, without direction, by the Treasury? Without ministerial discretion? Really? Okay, that's interesting—an interesting take on it in itself, which we might pursue with more questions. But that's a key element here.

We can talk about this. I'm happy to sit down, with great respect, and listen to members opposite say why they think that these tax cuts, as they have been redesigned by the government, are a better policy, or more targeted or better right now, than what was designed five years ago with the stage 3 tax cuts, albeit that stages 1 and 2 were for lower-income earners. But it's almost hypocritical to say that times and circumstances have changed. They haven't changed in three weeks. It was only three weeks ago that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer were saying that the stage 3 tax cuts would go through as legislated.

Let's be really blunt about this: why were the Treasurer and the Prime Minister asked about this 100 times? They were asked 100 times because a lot of the media and a lot of people didn't really think they believed in them anyway. That's why it happened. You don't get asked 100 times about an issue if people think you believe in it and people think you're going to carry through with it. Why they were asked 100 times, and why that statistic is there, is because a lot of people knew, or believed, that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer didn't believe in stage 3. But they've reinforced the hypocrisy here, because 100 times they said, 'No, we do, and we're going to put them through as legislated.' Then, suddenly, it was, 'Oh, no, we're not.' That's where the deceit has been here. Everyone knew that they really didn't want to do it. If they had said that two years ago, one year ago or six months ago then maybe; but to say it now at the 11th hour, 'Oh, all the circumstances have changed.' The Australian people aren't mugs, and they have seen through this.

Let's look at the timing of this. A quote was mentioned where one of the ministers said earlier today, 'If you want to be really cynical about this, there's a by-election coming up.' I think that's one of the reasons they've done this—and this may be cynical—there's a by-election and they've asked: 'How can we divide the public? Let's pick out an income and give the tax cut to the people below that but not above that. Let's try and be divisive about this; let's try and wedge the coalition and run a divisive thing about this.' That's quite disappointing, but it's not surprising from this government. I think some of the intentions of some of those opposite—and of some of the ministers opposite, I must say—on the Voice were very altruistic, and I respect them for that. But it was always going to be divisive in the way it was run. They ran it—the Prime Minister ran the Voice as a divisive thing through a lot of things that he didn't do with that campaign—and now, again, I think they're looking to divide the public in Australia on this issue as well.

I look at the Treasurer, who's apparently a student of Paul Keating—and I'm happy to go on the public record and say that I myself have a lot of admiration for former Treasurer Keating and Prime Minister Keating. He didn't divide the country like this. When he looked at tax cuts, do you know what he did? He lowered the upper end of personal income tax from 60 per cent to 49. That's what Keating did. The Treasurer might regard himself as a student of Keating, but, gee, he hasn't digested it, because Keating lowered the personal income tax rate from 60 per cent not just for those earning over $200,000 but for every income earner. These were the top income earners. You're not doing that at all; you're not lowering income tax like Keating—

I'll take the interjection. Keating lowered income tax for everybody, without a capped income.

You're not. You might want to read the legislation. If you earn over $200,000, you're not getting a tax cut.

See this speech in context