Senator O'CHEE —My question is directed to the Leader of the Government in the Senate, the leader in the Senate of a government that led the Australian people to believe that it was not going to increase tax. How then does Senator Gareth Evans explain the fact that the government has put up tobacco tax, HECS, tax on long service leave, wine tax, petrol tax, wool tax, fringe benefits tax and sales tax? Why should the government be allowed to get away with this when it conned the Australian people? It conned them and it conned them and it conned them. Why should it be allowed to get away with it? Why does it think it has the right to mislead the people just like that?

Senator GARETH EVANS —I am having difficulty extracting the question from the rhetoric. The short answer is that nobody was conned because no commitment was made, for exactly the reason that I spelt out in my previous answer. When the Prime Minister talked about no increase in taxes, he was talking about no increase in the proportion of revenue to GDP. That is absolutely totally clear from the context of what he said at the time, and it is totally dishonest for members of the opposition to come in here and to claim otherwise.

  The reason there have been those revenue increases—and there are a number of them in the budget—is in order to achieve that fiscal strategy, the medium-term four-year strategy which I described and which manifestly is in the interests of all the people in this country. We cannot have growth resumed in this country's economy without a responsible fiscal environment in which that will occur, a responsible monetary policy, a responsible wages policy, a responsible micro-economic policy and a responsible policy towards employment and training. We cannot have anything without all of those factors coming together in a responsible way.

  People on the other side, who want to pick and choose in a piecemeal fashion between the individual components of the budget, are absolutely failing in any residual responsibility they might think they have with the Australian electorate. The Australian electorate has made perfectly clear what it thinks of the other side. When it comes to fiscal responsibility, the Australian electorate gave a vote of confidence to this government. That confidence was deserved because this government is behaving absolutely responsibly on the fiscal management front.

Senator O'CHEE —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. We now know why the government did not put a tax on hot air because Senator Gareth Evans would have to pay more than anybody else. He says that the Australian electorate gave a vote of confidence to this government. Why should the Australian electorate now be allowed to be betrayed by this government in the way that it has been? What is so responsible about soaking the poor with the taxes of this government? I ask Senator Gareth Evans to explain to this Senate why we and the Australian people should allow the government to break so many promises and put through these tax bills which are so dishonest, so immoral and so harsh on the people who cannot pay.

Senator GARETH EVANS —To get straight to the point, Senator O'Chee, I have nothing further to add to my answer.