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

There is nothing fair about a 50 per cent increase to the GST or broadening its base, but members of the coalition opposite are lining up to back it in: senators McGrath, Smith and MacDonald and the members for Leichhardt, Lyne and Wannon along with the member for Goldstein—the Minister for Trade and Investment—who insists that 'there's general agreement that the broader the base, the better'. The question is, Minister Robb: better for who?

Modelling suggests that broadening of the base of the GST to include fresh food, for example, would add another $686 per year in costs to the average household. It would add another $251 per year if extended to education, $467 more if extended to health and another $727 for financial services and other items. NATSEM modelling released last week shows that increasing the GST to 15 per cent would hit low-income Australians the hardest, with people in the lowest 20 per cent of income brackets to pay seven per cent more, while people in the highest 20 per cent income bracket would pay just three per cent more.

The Liberals clearly do not understand that people are already struggling to make ends meet to pay bills—including the people in my electorate of Newcastle. Slugging people who can least afford to pay more while letting those who can off the hook is never going to pass the fairness test in Australia. It is just more of the same old unfairness from a supposedly new Liberal Turnbull government.