Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, I remind you, before asking my next question, that former deputy commissioner of taxation Jim Killaly, who was in charge of large companies and also international matters for the Australian Taxation Office, said back in 1996 and 2010 that 90 per cent of Australia's large companies are foreign owned and have paid little or no tax since 1953, due to Liberal legislation that was passed in 1953 letting major foreign owned corporations off the hook. Bob Hawke made sure that the Labor Party was also giving gifts to major foreign corporations by letting the world's largest avoider of tax, Chevron, off the hook for tax in the North West Shelf. Surely the fix to bracket creep is to index brackets. If we'd done that 10 years ago we would have saved the people $44 billion in tax. You say, 'Where can we get the tax from?' I get that tax is the cost of government, that tax is the price of government and that tax has to be paid, but foreign corporations in this country are paying little or no company tax.

That means they're using our services that every mum and dad and family and small business is paying for in this country, and they're doing it for free. We used to be the world's largest exporters of gas, we get very little for it, and these foreign companies are sending it overseas. Japan gets $3 billion a year off import duty for our gas going into their country, and we get very little for it. So what I say to you is that we can't afford it because you're not taxing foreign multinationals adequately. You're letting them off the hook.

Because you didn't index brackets in this attempt, over the next four years Australians will pay $38 billion more tax than if you indexed brackets. Surely, you can look at the spending and cut some of that back. Surely, you can look at the taxation of foreign multinationals and make sure they start paying their fair share. Then let Australian families off the bracket-creep hook. Why can't you do that proper budget for the Australians?