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

Every serious commentator and analyst has confirmed that, were Labor's policy on negative gearing put into place, demand for established properties would fall by about one-third. Perhaps Labor senators are not aware—perhaps they have other investments—but for most Australians their biggest investment is in their home. The Labor policy would reduce the investment of every single homeowner around Australia, and I am quite sure that Labor has not modelled or thought this through properly. I would like to see the 'fully costed, fully funded' analysis that Senator Ketter talked about, but I am sure that any examination of that would show that it is a figment of Labor's imagination.

On tax reform, when we consider the current government against those unfortunate times when we have had Labor governments, the contrast could not be starker. Most Australians simply do not trust Labor with money and economic policy. I often relate this story because people tend to forget this: I was in this parliament when the Labor Party were in government, and, before an election which the Labor Party thought they would lose, they introduced legislation to cut income tax and it passed with the support of the then opposition because we are all about reducing income tax for ordinary Australians. But, no sooner did Labor unexpectedly win that next election, the first piece of legislation that the newly elected Labor government brought in abolished, abandoned, repealed that legislation that had provided for tax cuts. So why would any Australian ever trust anything the ALP said in relation to any form of tax reform or economic policy?

All Australians who are older than 20 would remember that the only tax cuts ever given by any government in recent history were those provided for by coalition governments, who introduced tax cuts in 1998, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. What did you get from Labor, by contrast? You got a carbon tax, which Labor went to an election promising they would never introduce. Their first action when they got into power was to introduce a carbon tax, which put up the price of electricity and the general cost of living for ordinary Australians right around our country. Then they introduced a mining tax, remarkable only—being a typical Labor tax—that it cost a lot but raised absolutely no money.

If you look at the actions, the actual governance, of the Labor Party compared to those of the coalition over any period of time, you will understand that you simply cannot trust Labor with money, and this applies to their back-of-the-envelope proposal on negative gearing. I know that it was not well thought through. We all know that Senator Conroy devised his NBN program on the back of a beer coaster on a VIP flight somewhere over Australia. Perhaps the negative gearing policy was done by Mr Shorten, in desperation, in the same way as the NBN was—on the back of an envelope, without any serious understanding or thought about how it could impact on Australians. I say 'Australians' because most investors in negative gearing are ordinary people: policemen, nurses, firemen, tradesmen, civil servants and so on. These are the people that Labor are attacking in their approach to negative gearing. So I know that Australians will treat Labor as they always have: you can never trust Labor with money. (Time expired)