Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to reports that over $8.4 billion a year is lost to corporate tax avoidance—more than the total amount of cuts this year from the government's budget. Why is the government going soft on multinational corporations that are not paying tax, while slugging Australian families?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What was this mob opposite doing for six years? If there are such problems, what were they doing for six years? Well, I tell you what—they belatedly woke up to this issue in February of last year. They promised to crack down on R&D tax avoidance or tax minimisation by foreign multinationals. They were so incompetent that they could not manage to get the legislation into the parliament and through the parliament before the election. We took this up.

Mr Conroy interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Charlton has been warned and will leave under 94(a).

The member for Charlton then left the chamber.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members opposite who claim to be against tax avoidance are now opposing the self-same measure that they proposed back in February last year—the monumental hypocrisy of the Leader of the Opposition on this issue. We are doing what we can to crack down on tax avoidance by multinational companies, including doing what the Leader of the Opposition wanted to do but now will not do. When it comes to tax, you just cannot trust the Labor Party—they always get it wrong.