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Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Page: 11752

Ms O'DWYER (Higgins) (17:17): It is interesting to hear from my colleague across the chamber on another litany of self-congratulation on tax reform. Today especially, to congratulate themselves on what is going to be an economy-wide crushing tax that they have passed, based on an untruth told to the Australian people before the last election, is a real disgrace and they should hang their heads in shame.

Wayne Swan, the Treasurer, has talked very big on tax reform. At the 2020 summit, which was the first big summit that was meant to be the big brains and ideas trust of the Rudd government, now the Gillard government, the big idea out of that was to have the Henry tax review. We had the Henry tax review. It was a review that cost the Australian people, as I understand it, around $10 million. It took two years to complete and delivered 138 recommendations. It was a review that was meant to be a full root and branch review that the Treasurer was then going to implement. Did he implement it? No. There have been about 2½ recommendations of those 138 that have in fact been implemented. The rest have been left to sit there ignored on the sidelines. So it is hardly root and branch tax review.

This is something that the government is very sensitive about because the Henry tax review received over 1,500 submissions. It did take a significant period of time to complete and when it was completed the Treasurer sat on it; for 1½ years it did not see the light of day. So this is hardly a reforming government when it comes to tax. Far from it. This government believes that tax reform is synonymous with bringing in new taxes. The record of this government is very weak.

I would just like to touch on the tax grabs of this government. We have had 19 new tax grabs since 2007, including: the alcopops tax, raising $3.1 billion over four years for the government; a new tax on Australians working overseas, expected to raise for the government $675 million in revenue; cutting what Australians can put into superannuation tax-free, which is going to get the government $2.8 billion over four years; and restrictions on business losses that is going to generate for the government a revenue of about $700 million over the forward estimates. And it goes on and on: changes to the employee share scheme, a hike on cigarette taxes of about 25 per cent, the imposition of a mining tax, ethanol taxation increases, LPG excise increases, tightening restrictions on medical expenses before you can claim them on tax, an increase on the luxury car tax, a new flood levy, a tax increase on company cars, the abolition of the entrepreneurs tax offset, the phasing out of the dependent spouse tax offset, disallowing deductions against government assistance payments, removing miners' eligibility for the low-income tax offset on unearned income, deferral of tax breaks for green buildings and, of course—the big one—the great big new carbon tax, passed in the House of Representatives today.

The government's record is very poor. We know that their carbon tax is going to be a $9 billion a year tax for the first three years and is only going to go up and up, costing Australian households around $860 per year. But we know the ambition for this is that it will not be $23 a tonne, because the Greens let the cat out of the bag when Senator Hanson-Young said she would like to see it go as high as $100 a tonne or even higher.

Our record is very different. We believe that tax reform has to be genuine. We believe that it needs to be lower, simpler and fairer, and our record under Treasurer Peter Costello demonstrates that. When the GST was introduced, it removed inefficient state taxes. It reduced personal income tax rates as well, such that 80 per cent of Australians are now on a marginal tax rate of 30c in the dollar. This is in fact a real tax achievement. This is real tax reform. Treasurer Wayne Swan could learn a thing or two from former Treasurer Peter Costello. We urge him in fact to look at what a real reformer does. We urge this government to reform taxes.