Topics: Coalition tax cuts without a carbon tax

 

E&OE…………………………

 

Andrew Robb the opposition is promising tax cuts, they’re always very attractive, the hard part is paying for them or explaining where the savings are going to be made, Julia Gillard says why don’t you have them costed by Treasury. What’s wrong with that idea?

 

Well there’s a large measure of hypocrisy to start with. As far as the carbon tax is concerned one: there’s still no detail out there of any consequence, two: Bob Brown says they’re still weeks away with major hurdles remaining; but more particularly the computer modelling which is a very essential part of their case; the government refuses to release that modelling with details, so….

Yeah but I wasn’t asking about their case, not the Government’s case, but your own proposed tax cuts from Tony Abbott, are you prepared to have them modelled by Treasury?

Tony Abbott says no.

 

No, well ,again, when the Government puts out its information in some detail so that the people can make their own assessments, and we can in fact see the outcome of the carbon tax and what the revenues are, they haven’t got the mining tax details out, they haven’t got the carbon tax details out.

 

Sorry, but they’re all Government proposals, I was asking you about specifically the Tony Abbott tax cut proposals set out at the weekend, are you prepared to detail them and have them costed by Treasury?

 

Long before the next election, we will have put out to all of the population the full package of fiscal measures that we will take to the next election and all of the policies, fully costed, so that all can see what we propose and how we will do it.

 

We will put those out in good time, but we will not be subject to the Government playing politics. Julia Gillard should focus on fixing the mess that she’s created and finalise the details of this tax which has been mooted now for months, and yet there is not one detail out there. All of these things will ultimately affect the rest of the savings that we will announce, and how we will achieve smaller government

Let me just ask you in particular on that point of smaller government Mr Robb; can I just ask you about smaller government because Tony Abbott has said he’s promising a permanent reduction in the size of government. 

 

History suggests that the opposition is not to be believed because you were part of the Howard Government. John Howard in twelve years did not reduce the size of government as a proportion of GDP, did not reduce the tax cut as a proportion of GDP in fully twelve years.

 

Well the Howard Government did accumulate massive surpluses; and did accumulate a large balance of funds in the black that really got us through the Global Financial Crisis.

 

What the Government has done in increasing debt massively, that has just deferred taxation.

But on your specific promise on reducing the size of government, John Howard never delivered.

 

No, that’s not true because John Howard accumulated nearly a hundred billion dollars in surpluses and money in the future fund and other means, money which was not spent on increasing the size of government it was money that accumulated and did help us through the Global Financial Crisis; and on top of that, we had tax cuts for most years within the Howard Government once we got on top of Labor’s debt in the early years.

Marius Benson:  

 

Let me pick up the point of tax. Taxation in the last budget was 21.8% of GDP. That was lower than in any year of the Howard government.

 But at the same time,this Government has spent a $30b surplus and accumulated $107b debt. Now that is deferred taxation. It will have to be increased by taxes at some stage. If you as a family borrowed $1m, then at some stage you have to pay this back. It becomes a liability.

 

This Government has really sought to confuse people and mislead people about its taxation situation. They’re leaving Australia with an extraordinary taxation burden into the future as well as making us highly vulnerable as an economy are the front pages in the paper’s today about a new Global Financial Crisis alert if the worse comes to pass.

I’ll have to leave it there. Andrew Robb, thank you very much

Thanks Marius. All the best