Corinne Mulholland (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about Labor's federal budget, which has delivered more tax cuts and a fair go to buy a home of your own and has strengthened Medicare. Let's start with the tax cuts. This budget is about delivering a tax system that is fairer for working Australians. It's about ensuring that everyday Australians can get ahead so they are rewarded for their work and their effort. It's about helping more Australians to get ahead and get a foot into the housing market.

This budget isn't about making the easy decision, to do nothing, which is the economic policy offered by Angus Taylor. Labor is making decisions to build an economy that delivers greater productivity, and Australians understand that. Australians made the right choice at the last federal election, rejecting the Liberal Party. And last weekend, in the once blue-ribbon seat of Farrer, they again rejected the Liberal Party, because this is same party that went to the last election promising higher taxes for ordinary Australians. It is the same Liberal Party under which wages stagnated for a decade. It is the same party under which productivity stalled. It is the same party under which bulk-billing rates were in freefall, making it more expensive and more difficult to find a doctor in Australia.

Instead, thanks to Labor, over 13 million working Australians will receive a tax cut in this budget. This is real money for working people, not shareholders, not trust beneficiaries, not investors with six properties—real Australian workers. We will not be lectured about taxation by those opposite, because the highest taxing government in Australia's history was John Howard's government. That is not an opinion; it's a fact. The ATO has confirmed it. Treasury's own numbers have confirmed it. Under Howard, the tax-to-GDP ratio hit a record 24.2 per cent in both 2004-05 and 2005-06. The top seven years of tax to GDP since the 1950s all belong to the Howard government. They don't like to hear it. They don't like to be reminded of history. If you want to put something in a motion about the highest taxing record, you'd better have the receipts to prove it—every single one of them.

Under Labor in 2011, the ratio dropped to 19.9 per cent, the lowest in 33 years. Howard had the mining boom behind him, and we're not begrudging him that, but what did he do with all that money? He introduced the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount in 1999, and that single decision—