Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance and Deregulation (Senator Wong) and the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research (Senator Evans) to questions without notice asked by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate (Senator Abetz) and Senators Cormann and Payne today.

There you go, the trifecta! I wish to draw particular attention to the responses of the government to questions around their $120 billion black hole which the Financial Review, I think it was, featured on its front page recently. That figure is a calculation based on major new spending announcements made by the government over the last few weeks. These spending announcements have come on top of previous announcements of spending relating to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the Gonski review process and a dental care scheme, quite fortuitously in the same week that the government dropped the floor price for carbon—it seems that the Greens may have been seduced by the billions being promised for a new dental care scheme. This very week we have the government talking about topping up the wages of child-care workers. Child-care workers are among the lowest paid and most valued members of the community, but we are talking about a situation where topping up their wages would come on top of a spending spree over the last few weeks. That has had people in this chamber and elsewhere speculating that the government is clearing the decks for an early election.

We in the opposition take a very dim view of where this will lead. We believe that the government is contemplating in its Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook a whole series of swingeing cost reductions and tax increases to pay for spending announcements of the last few weeks and months. We are already on the record as opposing increases in tax. We opposed the carbon tax. We opposed the mineral resource rent tax. We are in favour of lower taxes rather than higher taxes. Indeed, my recollection is that at the end of the Howard government, taking into account the tax cuts that we committed to in 2007 election campaign, the tax share of GDP was 23.1 per cent in 2007-08, something the government has not yet attained.

There are those on the other side who are brimming with ideas about how the government can bridge this gap between its spending and its revenue base. Along with other people, I acknowledge that the revenue base is shrinking. We are in a post-global financial crisis will. Capital gains tax revenue will not be as strong as it previously was. Wealth is not growing as strongly as it was previously. No doubt that is something, Mr Deputy President, that you are aware of as well.

In this context, therefore, there is discussion about potential revenue measures to fill the hole. My fear is that the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook could see more of those measures being put forward, including potentially, a further cut to the diesel fuel rebate. There has been talk in some circles that the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, will revisit issues around death duties for estates above a certain value.