Mr PEARCE (Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) (12:02 PM) —The first comment I would like to make is that we really do not need anybody from the Australian Labor Party to tell us how to manage tax in this country. I think the difficulty that the member for Prospect—from his remarks just now—has been listening to Sharan Burrow much too much. I cannot understand why the member for Prospect and those in the Australian Labor Party continue to want to sell down our country. Australia is the best country in the world and they keep on bad-mouthing Australia and selling us down. I cannot get over it. I know that is what the ACTU want to do, but I would have thought that a federal member of parliament would want to sell up and uplift our country. That is the first point I make.

The more general point is, as I mentioned earlier, that I do not think we need any gospels or preaching from the Australian Labor Party when it comes to tax. The member for Prospect talked about the Hawke-Keating government and tax. I remember the Keating government in relation to tax, as you would, Mr Deputy Speaker Secker. I remember the famous l-a-w tax cuts, which we Australians were meant to get, which were never realised of course. But the Howard coalition government has done more to help Australians and Australian business in relation to tax than any other government in Australia’s history.