Helen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Minister Garrett. Thank you, Mr Deputy President. I was getting overwhelmed by the scandalous waste by particular ministers, so I lost my sense of etiquette at the time. My apologies. What needs to be pointed out is that this scandalous waste of money is the very thing that is increasingly putting inflationary pressure on the cost of living. The energy cost that Senator Adams has already raised is but one example. She is absolutely right in saying that the carbon tax that was totally ruled out before the last election and has now been ruled in will actually put upward pressure on electricity prices. All cost of living price rises are a threat.

Now the Prime Minister has formed—to put it in her words—a formal alliance with the Greens so that when they whistle we know that she will be beholden. First up, we have the carbon tax committee, the committee for believers, but there are many, many other policies that they are interested in bringing into this place that will dramatically affect the cost of living and have a significant impact. There are policies such as the introduction of congestion taxes and increasing the tariff on four-wheel drives by 10 per cent. We have already covered the resource super profits tax in this place many times, where they would like to see a 50 per cent tax rate. We have seen the slashing of education support and funding for Catholic and independent schools. There is the abolition of the private health insurance rebate. We are seeing the taxing of family trusts. There is also the review of the GST and the implementation of that. There are many, many policies that directly impact the cost of living, and it is these that we should be very much aware of. The government want to look at changing the taxation system from work based taxes to taxes on natural resources. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.