Senator WEBBER (1:03 PM) —I rise to speak on the Tax Laws Amendment (Personal Income Tax Reduction) Bill 2004. There can be no doubt that the hardworking Australians who earn more than $52,000 per annum are entitled to a tax cut. But the heart of this matter is whether Australians who earn less than $52,000 are also entitled to tax relief. This government, in one of the most cynical exercises in Australian history, has engaged in the most blatant vote-buying round of tax cuts ever seen—targeted at the few and not at the many. There can be no doubt that these tax cuts are not worth a cent to most Australians. Indeed, according to official statistics, there are no tax cuts for four out of every five taxpayers. By any objective measure, having 80 per cent of people miss out on these tax cuts fails this Prime Minister's 1996 promise to govern for all of us. Instead, he governs for some at the expense of all of us.

Take one very simple exercise as a case in point. As former Prime Minister Paul Keating once said, you should always back self-interest because at least you know it is trying. I, like all senators and members, employ staff. I chose to have a flat structure, with all my staff employed as electorate officers grade B. The injustice of these tax cuts can have no clearer example. Personally, as with all other senators and members, I will get a tax cut. There will be tax relief for parliamentarians because we earn over the magic $52,000 per year. But there will not be one cent of tax relief for any of the people who work with me in my office. This, of course, illustrates the failure of these tax cuts. I work with these people day after day, and the government is telling me that I can have a tax cut but that no-one else in my office can.

Now the basic defence that the government offers as to why it has failed to deliver tax cuts to 80 per cent of Australians is that these people will be looked after through the family tax payments. That premise only holds up if those people are eligible for family tax payments in the first place. If you are a family where both you and your partner work yet do not earn more than $52,000 per year then, even with dependent children, you get nothing from this government. If you are a self-funded retiree, you miss out. If you have not had children, you miss out. If you are single, you miss out.

Some commentators have referred to the 80 per cent of Australians who will not get a tax cut as the `forgotten people'. I grant it is a strong term but I contend that in this case it is not an appropriate one. The Howard government can hardly claim that they have forgotten these people. A more correct term would be the `ignored people'. There can be no doubt that that 80 per cent have been deliberately ignored by this government. How do you forget 80 per cent of Australians? The government made a conscious decision to not provide tax relief to these people. They simply weighed up the odds and decided that giving tax relief only to those Australians earning more than the magic $52,000 a year would boost their re-election prospects. Let there be no doubt that they chose to give to the few at the expense of the many.

Indeed, we do not have to look beyond the figures from the last census, of 2001. The ABS data shows that in most electorates more than 80 per cent of people will receive not a cent in tax relief. Let us look at the figures for the electorates in my home state of Western Australia. In the electorate of O'Connor, one of the safest Liberal seats in Western Australia, 93 per cent will not qualify for a tax cut. Perhaps this is yet another example of the inability of the member for O'Connor to represent the interests of his constituents. After all, he will get a tax cut. There will be tax relief for him and for only a paltry seven per cent of those in his electorate. What about the other safe Liberal seats in Western Australia? In Tangney only 14 per cent of people will get a tax cut. In Forrest only nine per cent will get any relief. In Kalgoorlie a massive 20 per cent will get tax relief. In Moore 13 per cent will get tax relief, and in Pearce nine per cent will. In Curtin 21 per cent of people will receive the tax cut. These figures demonstrate that the overwhelming number of Australians, even in the government's own electorates, are going to miss out. In one of the most marginal seats in the country, the seat of Canning, the Prime Minister and his Treasurer have failed to help even 20 per cent. In Canning 90 per cent will miss out.

The ALP seats in Western Australia do not even reach the lofty heights of the figures for the electorates of Curtin and Kalgoorlie. In fact, the highest percentage of Western Australians in Labor seats receiving a tax cut is only just reaching double figures. In Fremantle, it is 11 per cent; in Perth, 11 per cent; in Swan, 10 per cent; in Stirling, 10 per cent; in Cowan, nine per cent; and in both Brand and Hasluck, eight per cent. That is not good enough by any measure. The government cannot claim that those people who will miss out will be accommodated under the family tax payments system. For those with no dependent kids, there will be no family tax assistance. For those with dependent kids over 18, there will be no family tax assistance. The government pretend that the tax cuts are not the whole picture, and in that they are right. The whole picture has to include all those people the government chose to ignore. The full picture includes all Australians, and the fact is that across the country 80 per cent of them do not get any relief from this government.

The ABS census statistics show that those electorates that do best out of this government are all safe Liberal seats in—surprise, surprise!—Sydney and Melbourne. In North Sydney, 35 per cent will get a tax cut; in Wentworth, 30 per cent—and I bet they will be glad to have their new member, whomever that will be—in Bradfield, 29 per cent; in Higgins, 26 per cent; in Kooyong, 24 per cent; in Mitchell, 24 per cent; in Goldstein, 22 per cent; in Berowra, 22 per cent; and so it goes on. I find it interesting that in the Prime Minister's own electorate 81 per cent will not get a tax cut but in the electorate he now chooses to live in—that is, North Sydney—only 65 per cent will miss out. Talk about ignoring the people that put you there. Now comfortably living in the electorate of North Sydney, he looks after his new neighbours but ignores his constituents. That is not really fair. He ignores 81 per cent of the people he is meant to represent.

These tax cuts were designed to deliver a fourth term to the Howard government. They are a failure by any measure of justice or equity. They are designed to buy votes—pure and simple. The tax relief in this budget is not designed to put fairness or equity back into the taxation system. As Senator Conroy said, it is not even designed to restore bracket creep. It does not address the needs of single Australians, couples with no children or self-funded retirees. It is a tax cut for a few of us, given in the hope that all of us will be subjected to another three years of Howard government policy drift. That is what these tax cuts are designed for. They are designed so that there will be two more years of neglect and clawback followed by a spending binge in yet another election year. The Australian people are now aware of the cruel frauds that have been perpetuated on them over the last eight years. What they wanted was a government for all of them, and that is what the Prime Minister championed. What they now have is a government for a few of them, for less than 20 per cent of them. They have a government that has not forgotten about them but has deliberately chosen to ignore them.