John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think even Senator Conroy would realise that. I know he is a climate change sceptic—I think he is, anyway. So housing affordability means let's go to the next election with a plan to put a tax on everything in our building industry. How is that go to make houses cheaper? How are people in the cities ever going to afford a house? That is why I keep telling them to come out to the country towns—$250,000 will buy a lovely three-bedroom, brick veneer home in a nice area where I am fortunate enough to live, in Inverell in northern New South Wales. It is a real problem. When it comes to affordability and tax, those opposite have one plan—raise taxes and spend more. What have they announced so far? About $8 billion worth of increases in taxes and some $26 billion or $30 billion of extra spending. So tax more but spend even more to bring the budget further into the red and mortgage our children's futures away.

I do not know when the election will be—it might be sooner than we expect, though it is due in August-September-October, as the Prime Minister has pointed out. It may be sooner depending on some bills that come to this place. Those opposite, in the Labor Party and the Greens, will oppose the ABCC legislation because they want to look after the CFMEU and see that they are protected while they disrupt the building industry. When the election comes we will get back to this whole issue of taxation and our plans for the future of Australia. Our plans will be spelt out and costed—there is no doubt about that. We will keep continuing to try and clean up the financial mess we inherited.

If you go back to 2008-09, we had a huge terms of trade surplus. Iron ore was worth a fortune, coal was worth a fortune and we were exporting huge surpluses each month. The government was raking in a fortune in taxes from those big companies. But of course they spent more than they brought in and the debt continued to grow and grow. And that was during good times. If we do not think the good times have gone, the loss announced by BHP today is enough to scare everyone—a $5.7 billion loss. That indicates exactly how the resources sector is going and how tough the budget will be. Of course those in the Labor Party and the Greens will oppose us getting the budget in order. They have even opposed their own savings plan in this place. Labor opposed some $6 billion worth of budget cuts that they had planned to make themselves. When we won government, they opposed them. We will see it all come out before the election, and hopefully that will be sooner rather than later.