Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

If I may take one of the interjections, it is clear that the opposition hasn't learnt, and I would remind Senator McGrath that, if he is interested in taxes, he is part of a party that went to the last election with higher personal income taxes, higher taxes on the resources and manufacturing sector, higher taxes on motorists and higher taxes on the housing and construction industry. But all of a sudden Senator McGrath—someone who, I think, says he believes in smaller government despite the fact that he was part of the party that proposed many higher taxes for Australians at the last election—is now worrying about taxes.

Well, Senator, we have been very clear. We put an agenda before the Australian people at the last election which was about lower taxes for Australians. You opposed it. I think everyone in this country knows which is the party that is prepared to actually reduce taxes for working Australians and which is the party that went to an election very clearly saying, 'We want higher taxes.' No amount of scaremongering now, which is precisely what this is and I think we all know it, can hide the fact that the coalition has been the party of higher taxes, and it remains that to this day. I know that is an unusual state of affairs in Australian politics, but that is where the coalition has got to. They are the higher taxing party of Australian politics.