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

Do not say ‘Ask the minister,’ Senator Xenophon—I am asking you, I am asking Senator Cormann, I am asking anyone who can tell me, because the minister refuses to answer. Some would say if these people had been in drought for several years they probably would not have an income; they probably would not reach the $50,000. That may be the case, but they may have some other investments that give them an income of $50,100—the same as many people who were subjected to Cyclone Yasi might have incomes well in excess of $50,000, but they will be excluded. So, Western Australians, if you are in the fire zone you will be excluded but if you happen to be in the drought zone, tough! This is great legislation; it is great stuff from this government.

I would love to know just what this class of individuals is, and what constraints there are on the minister. One would think, if this government were genuine, that it would be this Senate chamber of the Parliament of Australia where you would make clear who was going to be exempted from this levy; what class of individuals it was going to be. If Senator Sherry says that this has already been determined and the legislative instrument has been drafted, why does he not take the Senate into his confidence and table it in the Senate so we can have a look at it? There cannot be anything wrong with that. Perhaps we will find that there are some other holes in the legislation. I would be fascinated to see it. I note it is a legislative instrument, so I suppose it can be knocked off in the Senate; we can disallow it. If you disallow it because it does not include everyone, those that it does include are also knocked out so everybody has to pay the levy. The end result of that of course is that the Senate certainly would not disallow it because you would be cutting off the noses of a lot of distressed Australians to spite the face of those few people in, for example, the drought areas who are not going to be impacted upon.

This is bad legislation. Senator Xenophon tried to answer for the government when he said that the levy is on individuals rather than companies because it was administratively easier, he thought—that was his understanding. But that is hardly a basis for taxing Australians. The levy is raising $1.8 billion. That is all coming from individuals. If it were taken from general revenue, then Woolworths, Coles, BHP, Rio Tinto and Xstrata would pay 55 per cent of that $1.8 billion and we individual bunnies would pay the rest. Individuals in Australia would pay about $0.8 billion and these wealthy, according to Senator Brown, multinationals would pay the other $0.9 or $1 billion. But, under this legislation, they get off scot-free; it does not cost them a cent. Certain individuals—though not every individual—will have to pay the levy. What is the policy sense of that? How could anyone vote for legislation that imposes a tax on some individuals? We do not even know how many individuals are going to be excluded. How many of the people who contribute 45 per cent of the general revenue are going to be excluded? If a small percentage of them are excluded it means those remaining pay even more. What is the sense in that? How could you possibly justify legislation along those lines?

I have a few more things to say but I think Senator Back might have some questions as well, so I will leave it there unless the minister chooses to earn his money tonight and actually answer some of the questions being put to him in this committee stage.