Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness) | Hansard source

There's a little thing called a democratic mandate, which is supposed to be a system where people put forward their ideas before an election and people can either vote for or against those ideas. In the UK, they call it a 'manifesto' and here we would call it a 'platform'. Now here in this country, the Prime Minister said that there would be no changes to these tax arrangements, and he was at great pains on occasion to say there would be no changes to the CGT or to the negative gearing arrangements if he was to be re-elected. Now, of course he has broken that promise and he will now have to wear that broken promise like a crown of thorns. This is not really a productive use of my time this evening in the Senate, because everyone knows that these commitments were made and they were breached. But it is important to note we are all custodians of a system where the Australian people are allowed to decide who they want to run the show and what policies they should be pursuing. Now, that is something that the Prime Minister will have to consider over the coming years, and, no doubt, his colleagues will also closely consider these matters. I suspect we won't need to prosecute them too much more.

This other old theory is a difference of opinion on tax policy. Now, in the Liberal Party, in the coalition, we have a view that the government has no money of its own. If the government wants to get money, it needs to raise the money from the citizenry and from the businesses in order to spend it on public good. We've always had a view that it's a reasonable proposition that taxes should be raised as efficiently as possible and public services should be provided as efficiently as possible.

But I go back to this point around the theory. On this side, we're firm in our belief that taxation is effectively legalised theft. We're taking something from the citizens, and we are going to spend it on something for the greater good. On the other side, you hear things like 'tax handouts'. We heard before from the Greens that there are handouts when people are paying less tax. This shows you the mentality of the other side of this chamber. They believe that the tax money belongs to the government. We believe that the tax money belongs to the people. That is a clear difference of opinion across the board.