Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Those comments from the minister are just completely unsatisfactory. He has not answered the very specific question on which this government is creating a whole lot of confusion. But let me just remind people of what it is we are debating here today. We are debating here today another Labor Party tax which will increase income taxes for all Australians earning more than $50,000 a year, unless they are part of one of the exemption categories. This is a tax which of course is not necessary at this point in time. It is not supposed to come into effect until 1 July 2011, and any government that properly managed its finances, any government that properly managed our public finances, would be considering the revenue needs and spending commitments in the context of the budget. This would be quite easy for the government to do on this occasion. This is a tax which is supposed to raise $1.8 billion not to fund the reconstruction of houses or property of individual Queenslanders but to fund the reconstruction of infrastructure which the state Labor government in Queensland did not properly insure, which is an issue that has been widely canvassed in this chamber.

The only reason why the Labor government are going for this tax is that the Labor Party can see an opportunity to politically get away with it. The Labor Party are looking for an opportunity to get away with yet another tax grab because they work on the basis that, quite rightly, there is a lot of goodwill from people right across Australia towards the necessary reconstruction effort in Queensland, which the coalition supports. Let me make this point very clear: this legislation has got nothing to do with the question of whether or not this investment should be supported, Commonwealth funding into Queensland to assist the Queensland government with reconstruction of their infrastructure. Of course we support that. But we think that any government that manages its finances properly should be able to fund that sort of commitment by reprioritising its current spending commitments. There is a lot of waste and mismanagement across government at present. We have widely canvassed in the past the waste and mismanagement, with the $2.4 billion pink batts program to put pink batts into people’s roofs only to take them out again, and the waste and mismanagement with the school halls. It has been waste and mismanagement everywhere.

We have got this question of who is going to be exempt from paying this tax. I asked a question about this to the Secretary of the Department of Finance and Deregulation in the Senate estimates: would people like those in Kelmscott who were subject to bushfires be exempt from the flood tax? No, said Mr Tune, the secretary of the finance department, not necessarily. I asked: why is that? Mr Tune said:

Well, the government’s decision at the moment is that those who are subject to the floods are exempt from the levy. It would require another decision to alter that.

Following up, I asked:

Only if the natural disaster you were subject to was a flood will you be exempt from the flood tax? If it is any other natural disaster, you are not exempt at the moment?

Mr Tune, the secretary of the finance department, said:

That is the situation as it stands at the moment.

This created quite a bit of interest in my home state of Western Australia, to such an extent that a journalist from the West Australian, Mr Andrew Probyn, rang the Prime Minister’s office and asked what the story is. Only those who are subject to a flood event are going to be exempt. What about the people of Kelmscott and other bushfire affected areas in Western Australia? Why do they have to pay the levy? This is what he was told: ‘Julia Gillard has said the victims of the Kelmscott bushfire will not have to pay the national flood levy.’ This was about an hour after the secretary of the finance department said that they would have to pay the flood levy. An hour later Prime Minister Gillard said that victims of the Kelmscott bushfire will not have to pay the national flood levy. The Prime Minister made the decision last night after a senior bureaucrat said that, although the fire victims qualified for $1,000 disaster recovery payments, they were still expected to pay the levy. ‘A spokesman for Ms Gillard said victims of this year’s WA bushfires would be exempted.’

The minister has now arrogantly said that he is not going to answer any more questions in relation to this. But I asked him this question yesterday and he refused to get up and confirm in answer to my question whether or not the statement that was made by the spokesman for the Prime Minister to a journalist of the West Australian stands. The minister then says this morning, ‘Go to the Treasury website.’ My office went back to the Treasury website today, Minister, and you might want to listen to this. I can see you are trying furiously to get some further advice from your advisers but you could actually do us the courtesy, even if you are not prepared to answer questions, of taking some notice of what is being said in this chamber in relation to this very bad Labor Party tax. You could at least do us the courtesy of listening to the debate, even if you are not prepared to answer questions. That would be a very good start. The arrogance of this government is absolutely breathtaking. Maybe the minister can read the comment in Hansard if he is not prepared to actively participate in the debate.

We went to the Treasury website today, and on the Treasury website there is what is called a flood levy fact sheet. If you want to check it out, Minister, it is

www.treasury.gov.au/documents/1948/PDFflood_levy_fact_sheet.PDF. Today on your website what does it say? It says:

Exemption from the flood levy

Where the person has received an Australian government disaster recovery payment in relation to a flood event in 2010-11, they will be exempt from the levy.

That is on the Treasury’s website today—in direct contradiction to comments made by a spokesman for the Prime Minister in the West Australian on 23 February 2011, about a decision that the Prime Minister made on the run after questions being asked about this at Senate estimates. You can arrogantly say to us that you are not going to answer any more questions, Minister, but quite frankly the people of Western Australia deserve answers to these questions. I tell you something else, Minister: the people who have been impacted by droughts, the people who have been impacted by storms, the people who have been impacted by natural disasters in other parts of Australia deserve answers to these questions. Who is going to be exempt? Can you confirm that it is not just going to be those people who were subject to a flood event? Can you confirm that it is going to be the people that were subject to bushfire in Kelmscott? Can you confirm that it is going to be people who were subject to storm events in other parts of Australia? Can you confirm that it is going to be people who were subject to drought events? And what other natural disasters is the government currently considering for exemption from this ad hoc Labor Party tax grab?

We understand that the Labor Party is always looking for another opportunity to get away with yet another Labor Party tax, but this is a parliamentary democracy. This is a system of parliament where the government is accountable to the parliament and where the government is supposed to answer legitimate questions that are raised by members of parliament to explain the reasons, the rationale and all of the ins and outs of a particular proposal that is before it.

You have not addressed with one single comment this morning the questions that were raised in this chamber last night by a number of senators in relation to the categories of Australians that will be exempt from this tax. I hope that you will reconsider the arrogant statement you made, which was that you are not going to get up to answer any more questions in relation to this, because it has not all been canvassed. As I have outlined, statements were made by the Prime Minister in the West Australian on 23 February. I cannot contradict the flood levy fact sheet on the Treasury website today. You are telling us that we should not worry about asking you questions in this chamber. You are telling us: ‘Go to the website’. We have gone to the website, Minister, and the website does not give us the answers we need. So we will do what our job is—that is, ask you questions in this chamber so you can give us the answers we need.

You can shuffle your papers and not even try to engage in this debate in any way whatsoever, but maybe you could interject for a moment and tell us what the answers to these questions are. But if you do not, if you are not in a position to provide an answer to these very legitimate questions, the people of Australia will be able to make a judgment on this, because the people of Australia of course know that this Labor government will impose a tax on them whenever they think they can politically get away with it. On this occasion your government clearly has made a judgment that it can politically get away with it, and so you cannot be bothered to go through the proper parliamentary process to provide answers to some legitimate questions which raise serious concerns for people in many parts of Australia but specifically on this occasion in my home state of Western Australia.

So, Minister, I would urge you to reconsider the decision that you have made not to participate any further in this debate and I would urge you to confirm for the people of Kelmscott, for people in drought affected areas and for people in storm affected areas across Australia that they also, not only those Australians who have been subject to a flood event, will be exempt from this flood levy. The people across Australia who otherwise will be hit inappropriately by this Labor Party tax deserve that explanation from you—in particular given that your government has made a decision not to pursue this tax through the normal budgetary process, which would have been very easy for you to do. It would have been, to use your words, the administratively easier way to go. But of course the reason we are wasting all these hours of debate in this parliament is that you have chosen to pursue this tax through ad hoc legislation outside any proper, normal budgetary process. You made a decision to whack on this tax because you could see a political opportunity to get away with it.