Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This debate is about something that we've been talking about very often over the course of this sitting week and last sitting week, and that is the government's outrageous proposals to give further tax cuts to the wealthiest people in our community and to big banks and big business in general. I think it's well known by now the kinds of figures we've been talking about, because we have talked about them quite a lot over the last week or two.

Let's just revisit what occurred in this chamber last week, where we had a gaggle of coalition senators, supported by One Nation and Centre Alliance senators and a few other Independents, who ganged up to give themselves a $7,000 tax cut while they were willing to give only a measly few hundred dollars to low- and middle-income earners. There's the hypocrisy of government and One Nation senators in doing that. I particularly want to single out the National Party senators and One Nation senators, who do come down here to Canberra and claim that they represent some of the poorest people in our community, particularly in rural and regional areas. Yet what they did last week was take instructions yet again from Liberal Party representatives, who represent some of the wealthiest parts of the country, and effectively handed over their votes and their own constituents' taxes and services to fund a massive tax cut for themselves, among other wealthy business owners.

As this motion states, the other effect of that debate last week and the legislation put through last week was that government senators, with One Nation senators and others, also provided a $7,000-a-year tax cut not only for themselves but for merchant bankers and investment bankers—the kinds of people who don't need that sort of assistance from this government. We all know that the way that's being funded is by continuing to cut funding to regional and rural services: hospitals, schools, TAFEs, apprenticeships, roads and transport. They're the kinds of things that this government is cutting, all to pay for $7,000-a-year tax cuts for investment bankers and the members of parliament who voted for these tax cuts.

We have another opportunity this week for National Party senators and One Nation party senators to demonstrate who they really stand for. Are they really on the side of battlers, as they claim when they're back in their electorates, or are they actually on the side of the billionaires who will benefit from these tax cuts? We know that, at some point in this week, a debate is going to come on, finally, for whether we should be providing another massive tax cut for the biggest businesses in Australia, including $17 billion for the banks.

We've seen from Senator Hanson flip-flopping around for months now on whether she will support these company tax cuts. I've lost count of the number of times that Senator Hanson has changed her position. She was originally going to vote against these tax cuts for big business, then she was voting for them. Then she was back to voting against them, then she was voting for them. She had another chat with Twiggy Forrest and she was voting for them, and then she went back to Queensland and told people that she was voting against them.

It's 4.37 pm on Tuesday, 26 June, and the current One Nation position is to vote against these company tax cuts. But you have to wonder why it is that yesterday, when Senator Hanson and Senator Georgiou were presented with an opportunity to bring on the debate to stop these company tax cuts from going ahead, they dogged it. Yet again, they voted with the government senators because that's just what they do. They don't use their own minds. They don't think about what people in Queensland or people in Western Australia think about company tax cuts. All they do is run up to Senator Cormann and his colleagues and say, 'Where do I put up my hand? Tell me what to do and I'll do it for you,' and, yet again, they sell out the battlers they say they represent.

At some point this week, they are going to be tested. At some point this week, the colour of their money is going to be tested and we will see, once and for all, whether they are for the big banks and big business or whether they actually do want to get behind better services for regional and rural Australians, not to mention people in electorates like Longman. We all know there's going to be a by-election in Longman in the coming weeks, as there will be in Braddon and other seats around Australia. As I've said to this chamber before, with the doorknocking I've been doing in Longman—I don't know whether Senator Hanson has had an opportunity to get out and doorknock in Longman; I know she's been in the electorate, but whether she's actually spoken to any voters on their doorsteps is another matter—there are not many people out there crying for big tax cuts for the big banks. Instead, they want to see this money put into their local hospitals and their local schools, and into giving pensioners and other working people a fair go. Let's hope they come through when the vote's on.