Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased that our matter of public importance was selected today with the ballot because there is nothing more important to Australian workers and Australian families than tax. In Senate question time today one of the first questions asked of the government was: where is your tax plan? What we got initially was an almost zero response from Senator Brandis and then, in response to our first supplementary question, we got a lecture on everything but tax. By the third supplementary question the lecture continued but Senator Brandis confirmed to not only the Australian Labor Party but all Australians that when it comes to tax and tax policy the Turnbull government has absolutely nothing to offer. That is because we have seen ideas put up, the backbench react and the ideas suddenly come off the table. It has been nothing more than a disgrace.

We know that initially Mr Abbott talked a big game. Who could forget the first budget of the Abbott government that took all Australians by surprise? Many of the commitments made to Australian voters were broken. No cuts to health, no cuts to education and the Gonski ticket that the Abbott government was then on with Labor—all of that was broken, trashed and burned. The trust of the Australian people was absolutely trashed and burned. The Australian people were treated with absolute disrespect.

Right from day one, as Liberal governments tend to do, there were big promises about tax cuts. It was all about tax cuts. When Mr Turnbull necked Mr Abbott for the top job he reiterated his support for that first harsh budget. The Australian community are absolutely in lock step with Labor that that was a very bad budget. It hurt ordinary working Australians. He signed right up to it. Mr Turnbull, the new Prime Minister, absolutely stood by every single element in that budget.

We have seen a bit of back-pedalling but we have not seen anything absolutely wiped off the slate. The $100,000 degrees are still there. Senator Birmingham, in a radio interview last week, confirmed that they still do want to look at those sorts of things. They are still there, but tax seems to have taken a back seat. It is something we do not hear them talking about any more. The big tax cuts were going to make life easier for Australian families and we were going to have cuts to various programs because money was going to be flooding in from all of the tax cuts that would benefit Australian families. We have seen nothing. What we have seen is not a plan; it is an absolute shambles.

We had a lot of talk about a year ago about the GST. We had a lot of talk particularly from Mr Hockey, who was the then Treasurer. Of course, he has gone off to take up a plum job in the US. He is our new ambassador. When he took up that job he said he could stay here and fight and argue with people in his own party in the parliament or he could go off to the US. What kind of job recommendation is that? He said: 'Rather than be abusive to my mates in the LNP, I will go to the US and take the plum job. Because I am such a poor negotiator you put me in charge of our relationship with the US.' What a joke. That was just a convenient way to get rid of Mr Hockey after Mr Abbott had been necked by Mr Turnbull.

The GST was clearly on the table. In conversations Mr Morrison talked about it. Senator Cormann talked about it. Indeed, Mr Turnbull, the new Prime Minister, talked about the GST. We had all this talk. Of course, Labor have been very clear about the GST. We oppose it. We opposed it when it was introduced and we have continued to oppose it. We certainly opposed increasing the GST to 15 per cent, which the Turnbull government was talking about. We campaigned with the Australian public. We let them know that the Turnbull government wanted to put a GST on health and food and they were even looking at putting it on education. That would have increased the burden that ordinary Australian households and workers were already under after the first and second bad Abbott and Turnbull governments.

Because Labor and the Australian public were in lock step in their opposition to the GST the wonderful Turnbull backbench started to get really nervous. The backbenchers are the ones really running the show. They are getting nervous about a double-D now. You might have heard in the media this morning a few of them getting a bit nervous about that. What happened? Suddenly the GST was off the table. But was it? On the day the Prime Minister called it off the table Senator Cash said that everything was under consideration. Who can you believe? Again that is a very clear demonstration that the Turnbull government has absolutely no plan at all when it comes to tax.

On the very day the Prime Minister says it is off the table you have senior people in the government, such as Senator Cash, saying that everything is on the table and it is all up for consideration. We saw that their notes were leaked. Maybe that is the problem. Maybe they are not all reading the same notes; they are just making it up as they go along. It was a very clear demonstration from senior people in the Turnbull government that they have no idea about the GST. Who could forget the appalling National Press Club speech by Mr Morrison just a couple of months ago? In the lead-up to the budget you hint a little bit. But of course he had the GST ripped out from underneath him so he did not have much left to discuss.

But he has spoken on the public record. So have a number of the Turnbull government members, but particularly the Treasurer has said this. He has talked about 'excesses' with negative gearing. He has talked about it a number of times, but of course once again he has been shut down, so we have never been able to get to the bottom of exactly what Mr Morrison was talking about when he talked about excesses in negative gearing. But it is very clear from those opposite that they want to make it easier for you to buy your 16th or your 17th property, rather than to enable young Australian families and indeed young Australian workers to buy their first house. Of course they are looking after their rich mates, as usual.

And then we look at multinational tax avoidance. A couple of weeks ago in this place I spelled out very clearly all of the partners of Alcoa—CITIC, some Japanese companies and so on—paying zero tax in this country while the Turnbull government stood by and allowed seafarers, Australian workers, Australian taxpayers, Australian mums and dads, members of the Australian community, to be sacked by companies that are not paying one cent in tax in this country. Not one cent! They stood by, and they thought it was fair game to see Australian jobs go to foreign workers on Australian waters for the princely sum of around $2 an hour. That is a disgrace. We have seen that the Turnbull government certainly does not stand for Australian jobs.

And then we saw the dirty deal that the Greens did on corporate tax. The government were desperate to do something. Besides not having a tax policy, they thought perhaps they could do something on corporate tax. The Greens had agreed with Labor—they had been in lock step with Labor—on reforming corporation tax in this country. Because the Greens have no idea how to negotiate—they barely have their Ls on when it comes to negotiation—they caved in at the eleventh hour and did a pathetic deal with the government on tax. It was a pathetic deal, and we have seen that again on Senate voting changes that they want to bring in: a cave-in. That is what they do.

It is very clear that the Turnbull government have no idea when it comes to tax, no plan. We have the budget now due—well, due sometime in May. We are not sure when the budget is due now. It used to be the second Tuesday, but who knows now, because they are hinting at something else? Perhaps they will need their mates the Greens to help them out again. They have no tax policy. (Time expired)