Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Labor members find it impossible to comprehend that in the coalition we actually have policy debates. We have meaningful discussions. We are not told by the union movement and the factional bosses, 'This is what you will do.' What did Senator Cameron famously say a few years ago? He talked about 'lobotomised zombies'. He said those opposite were not allowed to have any discussions in their party room, according to their bosses—which I take to be the union movements that run the Labor Party. If the leading unions say, 'This is the issue,' according to Senator Cameron, the lobotomised zombies are just not able to put a view or an argument that is in any way contrary.

Today we had in question time questions about capital gains tax. It is a bit like how for three or four weeks Labor and the ABC ran—I have to say, very cleverly—this 15 per cent GST campaign. As I always suspected, there was nothing in it from the government side, as Senator Cormann and others have said time and time again. In the coalition, we look at a broad policy range. We look at all aspects of areas on taxation matters—as we should. Some you land on and some you discard. That is what we do. We consult and we have these policy discussions both within the coalition parties themselves and with relevant and interested stakeholders. The capital gains tax furphy that Labor are now embarking upon, having lost the 15 per cent GST debate, is just like the GST debate. It is a figment of the Labor Party's imagination. They work on the basis that if you say it often enough and keep repeating it someone out there might actually think for a moment that the Labor Party are telling the truth. But as these things always show, as with the GST, these are just furphies and figments of the Labor Party's fertile mind.

The Labor Party have been looking seriously at a 15 per cent GST so that they can pay for some of their unfunded promises they have already announced for the next election I did not get the figures. Senator Cormann, was it $50 million—