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

Another day, and we are debating another tax from this socialist green government. Another day, and we are debating another attack on personal freedom from this socialist green government. Back in 2005, the Howard coalition government gave students across Australia a tax cut. Back in 2005, the Howard government ensured that students across Australia were able to benefit, like anybody else, from an important freedom, the freedom of association. And, back in 2005, the Howard coalition government ensured that students across Australia had the freedom to choose which services they wanted to access on campus and which services they were prepared to pay for. Let us make no mistake. What we are talking about here today is a tax. It is a tax on students to be imposed by this Labor green government. It is a $1 billion tax over the current budget cycle. Of course, this is a high-taxing, high-spending government. It is a government that has higher taxes as part of its DNA. We had the Henry tax review tell us that we had too many taxes—that we had 125 taxes in Australia, that 10 of those taxes collected 90 per cent of the revenue and that we should have fewer taxes. Guess what? Since the Henry tax review suggested that we should have fewer than the 125 taxes that we had at the time, this government has come up with at least another five. We are talking about the mining tax, the carbon tax, the flood tax, the student tax and the new tax on LPG. This is just one of many taxes, and students are now in a line with everybody else, being on the receiving end of the worst aspects of this high-spending, high-taxing government.

I chair the Senate Select Committee on Scrutiny of New Taxes on behalf of the Senate. We have inquired into this tax. Of course, the Senate Select Committee on Scrutiny of New Taxes has been rather busy, because this government consistently comes up with yet another tax. As we started to inquire into this student tax, government senators on the committee were trying to argue that somehow this is not a tax. 'It's a fee,' they said. 'It's a fee for service.' A fee for service is payable when you access a service. A fee for service is something that you pay when you use the service. It is something you do not pay when you do not use the service. I draw senators' attention to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, which defines a tax as 'a charge, usually of money, imposed by legislative or other public authority upon persons or property for public purposes'. This is exactly what is happening here. It is a compulsory levy. It is a compulsory charge which is supposed to be imposed by legislation which has been put forward by this Labor green government, and it is to be payable irrespective of whether a service is accessed or not. It is supposedly a levy which will fund services provided for public purposes.

If the government think these services are so important, maybe they need to reprioritise some of their other spending. Maybe they need to reprioritise their spending on things like pink batts and—