Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Again, what we heard from the Nationals, the supporters of the Liberal Party, is simply rhetoric, and empty at that. What they are now saying in effect, if you boil the speech down and if you forgive his inability to understand how fuel excise has worked—is that the Howard government froze it and then put in indexation. He brushed over that a little bit quicker than he should have.

Senator Williams interjecting—

He might want to bite now. People in rural Australia do understand how indexation will mean that their fuel will increase in price over time. He touched on fixing our roads. If you look at Labor's record on fixing roads over its term in government, it outshines yours by a country mile. If you look at his gloss over, really the MRRT in total, what he does not say, ultimately, is how regional and rural Australia will benefit from an MRRT and how small business would have benefited from accelerated depreciation and from a range of measures. It glosses over that completely. What we also did not hear is how we address the issues around climate change. Yes, if you are opposed to a carbon tax, if you are opposed to an emissions trading scheme, if you are a complete denier of climate change like the Nationals are, then I accept what Senator Williams is saying. But it is wrong.

Then suddenly at the end of his speech he dealt with the substance of what this argument is all about. This is about a treasurer, Mr Joe Hockey, who is not serious at all about cracking down on multinational tax avoidance. If he was serious about it, we would be seeing him take the argument domestically into the G20, but he does not. All he wants to do is to walk the walk and talk the talk but ultimately to lead us nowhere. He does not intend to deal with the issues at hand. By not proceeding with sensible measures which we implemented to close tax loopholes, the Australian people will be forgone in the order of $1.1 billion in revenue. To put this in perspective, that is about a new hospital that could be built. What this government is all about is talking loudly but taking no action. If you look at how they have ripped money out of the tax commissioner and sacked public servants, they have left the tax office woefully underpowered to go against these global firms. We do not have any real leadership in the G20 to look at tax scams or to argue how we can ensure multinationals pay their fair tax. What we do have is a weak and equivocal government that will get rolled on this issue in the G20 and will then use some tough words to dress up what is in fact a rhubarb pie.

What we have is a government that is also attacking those who can least afford it. Where Labor increased the pension, looked at how we could assist pensioners and how we could provide support for students, where we looked at how we could, in the longer term, assist those who are less advantaged than ourselves—this government is ripping it all away.

More fundamentally, at the last election Mr Abbott promised that there would be no cuts to health, no changes to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS. This budget included the opposite—it is a budget of broken promises. This coalition government cannot even manage its own house to ensure that it delivers on its own promises, let alone deal with the big end of town, attack those firms that do have the capacity to pay and make a reasonable contribution to international action. (Time expired)