Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Later day, perhaps even in a few moments time, the Australian Senate will—all going to plan—vote to repeal the world's largest carbon tax. It has been a significant attack on the welfare of the Australian people, on growth, on jobs and on the cost of living of so many Australians. It is a remarkable thing that, when the Australian people voted in such an overwhelming way, members of the Labor Party have consistently voted since the election to support the carbon tax. We have seen the members on the other side of this room vote at least three times in this parliament to keep the carbon tax. That tax is a $550 a year hit on families in my local community. It is thousands of dollars in extra costs for local businesses who just want to get on with the job and employ more people.

This is hopefully an historic day for our parliament when the coalition will deliver on what was one of its largest election commitments, which was to repeal the Labor-Greens carbon tax. What this shows is that we actually have a plan for the future of our country, a plan to go for growth. We do face significant challenges as a nation. In order to rise to meet those challenges we have to give the private sector—not the government but the private sector across the Australian economy—every opportunity to get ahead and do what they do, which is to grow, to prosper and to employ more people. You simply do not do that by imposing bigger new taxes on the Australian people and on Australian business.

There is a great quote from Winston Churchill which says the idea that we can tax a nation into prosperity is 'like a man standing in a bucket trying to lift himself up by the handle.' Unfortunately, that is the only policy the Labor Party has in the modern era. They do not have a policy to deal with the debt legacy that they left us. The Labor Party has left us, if we do nothing, with $667 billion of debt, which is $24,500 for every man, woman and child. To say that an Australian born today has to inherit that debt from the mess that was left to us by the former Labor government is simply inequitable and unfair to the next generation of Australians. Of course when the coalition left government last time around we had a $20 billion surplus and $50 billion in the bank. The Labor Party have left us a very significant debt burden. Not only do they not have any policies to deal with the mess that they left us but they even oppose measures they used to have for savings which they took to the last election. They truly are a party with no political spine; they are simply a populist movement. That is not good enough when it comes to fixing our nation's problems.

Beyond the debt burden we also have the challenge—I would say it is a challenge and not a problem—of the ageing population. Today we have about 5.7 people working for every person who is not working and, even with that arrangement, we are still not funding the needs of our nation. That is why we are heading towards that $667 billion. With 5.7 people in the workforce today for every person who is not, as a nation we are heading to a point where that figure is about 2½. We are not funding the system today with 5.7 people working for every one who is not in the workforce and we are going to go to 2½. The Productivity Commission has looked at this and said that if we do not do other things we will have to increase taxes by 21 per cent. That is an increase in tax before we even deal with the debt burden that our nation faces. On this side of the House we believe in lower taxes not higher taxes. In the Senate today the Labor Party are going to vote against the repeal of the carbon tax and the Greens are going to vote against the repeal of the carbon tax. In the coming weeks I really hope that the Senate have a long, hard think about what they are going to do in terms of our budget repeal measures, because if they do not support some of our measures it is the next generation that will inherit $18 billion a year in interest—that is money we cannot spend on roads, schools and hospitals—it is the next generation that will inherit a society where we do have to raise taxes because we have the challenge of the ageing of the population and it is the next generation that will inherit an Australia where there is a $24,500 a year debt bill. It is now time for the opposition and the crossbench to put up some alternatives, because it will be the next generation that will pay if they do not.