Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

It looks like the debate will come to an end because this Labor government minister simply chooses not to answer legitimate questions. How typical is this of the Labor Party! This government is only in power because of this new paradigm of ‘openness and accountability’. Here we have questions that do not go to the intellect of the minister at the table, the Minister for Small Business, but are questions from senators that I think deserve an answer and we have a minister that sits there and refuses to answer. I am particularly grateful to Senator Xenophon, who has at least put some legitimacy and truth into the debate by answering questions and explaining the legislation that we are going to vote on.

I am distressed that this legislation is going to become law very shortly. I cannot believe that only certain people are going to have to pay this additional tax. It has never before happened with a disaster in the history of the Commonwealth, yet people I know are going to have to pay this tax because of a bit of political mateship between the state Labor government in Queensland and the federal government. I cannot believe that people in Australia understand what this flood levy is all about. It is not going to be the case, as the Labor Party have been trying to pretend to people in Queensland, that this legislation is all about fixing their houses, replacing their furniture and helping rebuild the businesses of individuals. That is what people in Queensland have been led by the Labor Party to believe this flood levy is all about. It is anything but that. It is all about giving some taxpayers’ money to the Queensland state Labor government, a government that is so financially inept that it is broke and could not attend to recovery after a normal natural disaster.

We have had natural disasters in Queensland, I am sure, since time immemorial, certainly since recorded European times. We have never had a special tax levy for work which governments must understand they will have to do every year. Good heavens, if you listen to the Greens and the Left of the Labor Party you will know that cyclones are increasing in their occurrence, that floods are going to get greater, that droughts are going to get greater, that erosion and tidal inundation are going to get greater. Why would you not think the Queensland government would have understood this and put aside a bit of money for a rainy day, the same as Queensland governments have done for the last 150 years since Queensland became a state? They have always paid for this out of the general revenue of the Queensland government. Suddenly, for the first time in European recorded history, we are having a special tax on all Australians because the Queensland government cannot rebuild Queensland. I just cannot believe that this parliament has been conned, if I might say, into voting for this particular piece of legislation. It is a disgrace. It is a scandal.

I want to emphasise this, at the risk of repeating myself, by saying again to the people of my state of Queensland: you, as individuals, householders and business owners, are not going to get one cent of this flood levy despite what you have been led to believe by the Prime Minister and the Labor government. They have led you to believe that the coalition, by intending to vote against this, is being nasty to individuals by not fixing their houses and their businesses. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not one cent of this flood levy will go to individuals. It will go to the Queensland government to build roads and bridges and to build cyclone shelters that the Queensland government should have been building.

I do not criticise the Independents. I do not even bring the Greens into the equation—with such policy hypocrisy you do not even try to debate with them. But I must say I am distressed that the Independents are going along and slugging individuals—not all taxpayers, just a group of individuals—with this tax, with the money not going to householders and business people but going to the Queensland government. I am very concerned about this.

There are issues in this legislation—one is the specifying of a class of individuals—put forward by a government led by a leader who simply cannot tell the truth. This is the leader that promised hand on heart that there would be no carbon tax under a government she led—and we are giving that sort of ministry the ability to specify a class of individuals that will be exempted from this tax. I have asked the minister at the table to explain this, to put the parameters around it, to say how this is going to be dealt with—no answer, no accountability. This is simply another one of the Labor Party’s taxation arrangements to help a broke state Labor government in Queensland and to help a federal government that is increasingly showing its incompetence in financial management. But it is not too late. I say to the Independents: why is it that only individuals pay this? Surely that must be a question in the minds of the Independents. What is the policy rationale? I gave the minister two opportunities to convince us that there was some genuine policy rationale in only taxing a certain group of individuals, but he chose to attack the messenger.

I am genuinely at a loss. Please, anyone in the Labor Party—it does not need to be the minister—or even anyone on my side: can you tell me why individuals are paying this and not the coal mining companies, not Rio Tinto, not BHP? Why do my butcher and baker, as I keep on saying, have to pay for the road works and bridge works in Queensland when these major multinational companies are getting away scot-free? Do not ever let me hear the Labor Party or the Greens pretend that they are interested in individual Australians and lower income Australians when they are letting the most profitable people in our country off absolutely scot-free.

If it is a good tax and it needs to be done, if Queensland must have this money, why then is there only a certain few individual taxpayers who have to pay this and not major multinational, profit-making companies that, on the minister’s figures as I understand the one answer he gave me, contribute 55 per cent of Australia’s general taxation revenue? Why is not their 55 per cent going into rebuilding Queensland? Why is it only the 45 per cent contributed by individual Australians that is being taxed on this particular issue? If someone could give me a rationale for that I would sit down and walk out of here happily. Senator Xenophon is still here; perhaps you could tell me why you would tax individuals and let the big companies off scot-free. It just does not make sense. If someone could please explain to me why that is good policy I would leave the chamber disappointed that the bill went through but at least satisfied that there had been some policy rationale for it.

I do not want to delay the Senate all that much further. I just hope that the people of Australia who are all paying this levy will one day work out that they have been absolutely dudded yet again by the Gillard-Brown government. Individuals are paying for public works in Queensland whilst others get off scot-free. There are certain groups of individuals not yet identified who will not have to pay the flood levy and, gee, that must fill the chamber with horror. We are leaving it to this government, with a great track record for honesty and accountability and truthfulness, to determine which group of people are going to be slugged and which group of people are not going to be slugged. I just cannot believe that I am seeing this happen in the parliament of Australia. But I and my colleagues on this side have done perhaps all we possibly can do to alert the people of Australia to them being dudded yet again by this government. This will not be a temporary levy; it will continue because we will have a flood next year, we will have a cyclone next year, we will have a fire next year, we will have a drought next year. Having got this through this chamber, there is the precedent—‘Look, back in 2011 you agreed to this levy. Here comes another flood, so let’s have another levy.’

Sure, Senator Xenophon’s hard work might lessen the damage a bit but mark my words, this will not be a temporary levy. This will go on and on. They will find some excuse to continue it on next year. The Senate by then will be powerless to stop it. The Green-Brown-Gillard coalition will ensure that it gets through this Senate and Australians will be lumped yet again with another tax. I do despair. I hope against hope that when the final vote comes in the third reading perhaps a majority of this chamber will say, ‘No, this is just not good enough.’ If you need a flood levy, if you do need to get Queensland rebuilt, then let us get all taxpayers to do it—the big taxpayers, the 55 per cent who contribute to taxes in Australia. Let us get them to contribute, not just leave it to a couple of individuals.