CHRIS BOWEN MP
SHADOW TREASUER
MEMBER FOR MCMAHON
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP, SYDNEY
MONDAY, 2 NOVEMBER 2015
SUBJECT/S: Coalition proposals to increase the GST to 15 per cent and to
include the basics like health, education and fresh food; hit to consumer
confidence; Coalition’s $68 billion slug on Australian families; Coalition’s
hundreds of ways to spend one GST dollar; Labor’s fair Budget measures;
Knights and Dames.
CHRIS BOWEN, SHADOW TREASURER: Thanks for coming everybody. Another
day, another Liberal/National plan to increase the GST. The plans we see today
would see Australians pay $68 billion extra in tax every year. Make no mistake, when
the Liberals and Nationals talk about increasing the GST, they are talking about
working Australians, everyday Australians paying more tax. It is not tax reform. It is a
tax increase.
The Liberals and Nationals want to see Australians paying GST, paying extra on
those things that families want to do and that it is good for Australia for families to do,
to engage in further education, to buy fresh food which might be more expensive but
is better for our families, particularly for young people. The Liberals and Nationals
want to see these things made more expensive. Now since 2005 the general cost of
living has increased by 30 per cent. If you look at education costs, they have
increased by more than double this amount, 68 per cent. Health at around double
this amount; 59 per cent and basic food items, such as fruit and vegetables, have
risen by 41 per cent or 47 per cent depending on which you apply it to. So these
things are already getting more expensive. Mr Turnbull and his Government want to
make them more expensive still.
Here is the challenge for Mr Morrison. Mr Morrison says Australia doesn't have a
revenue problem and yet his government keeps talking about increasing revenue
except they talk about doing it by increasing the GST and the GST alone. They
haven't adopted Labor's fair and better plan for taxing superannuation concessions
for high income earners. They haven't adopted Labor's fair and better plan for
multinationals to pay a fair share of tax. Their answer is always the GST. Always,
every time making Australians pay more through the GST. It is in their DNA.
Now it is time for the speculation to stop. Every time that a Liberal floats the idea of
increasing the GST, Australian families are worried. We are already seeing
consumer confidence 12 per cent lower than at the time of the last election. The
lead-up to Christmas we see this speculation increasing not reducing. If Mr Turnbull
wants to increase the GST, he should tell Australians and he should tell Australians
sooner rather than later. He should cut to the chase and be honest with Australians
about what his plans are. We saw Mr Sinodinos yesterday admitting that the 2014
Budget was fundamentally dishonest, broke all their election promises. Well, it is
time for the Liberals to be honest with the Australian people in a way that they
certainly weren't at the last election.
Happy to take some questions.
JOURNALIST: Mr Bowen, if Scott Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull can do a deal with
the States to cut some of the inefficient taxes, payroll tax has been mentioned and
that is offset by an increase in the GST, what would be wrong with that?
BOWEN: Well here is the problem Michael, that the GST increase has been spent
about five times. Mr Baird has a proposal to increase the GST to pay for hospital
funding. There are other proposals I have seen to increase the GST to abolish stamp
duty and then Mr Morrison sort of floats around increasing the GST but having
personal income tax cuts. When you get an extra dollar from the GST, you spend it
once. These proposals see it spent two or three times. You can't do everything. That
is why this is a tax change which is beaten up to be much more positive than it really
is and if we saw that sort of proposal, well again you wouldn't see the increase in
health funding, you wouldn’t see the personal income tax cuts which the Government
is claiming they would be able to deliver.
JOURNALIST: Mr Bowen, economists are increasingly saying that the GST needs
to be increased and its base broadened to make the tax system more efficient. Why
isn't Labor listening to these experts?
BOWEN: Because our view is well considered, it is firm, it is based on our
discussions with the Australian people, it is based on our values and it is based on
the principle that increasing tax via the GST is inherently regressive and if the
Government thinks they can just simply - their answer to everything is to increase the
GST, it’s the only way we will get personal income tax cuts, it’s the only way the
States will reduce taxes, is to increase the GST. They are plain wrong.
JOURNALIST: What are the alternatives?
BOWEN: Well I have outlined two of Labor’s alternatives and of course we will have
more to say as we have flagged previously. But we recognise that both spending and
revenue needs to be part of the equation, we’ve always said that. It is Mr Morrison
who has got himself in this terrible conundrum where he says there is no revenue
problem and it looks like he is about to increase the GST which would be one big
massive increase in revenue.
JOURNALIST: If the Government goes ahead with an increase in the GST, will we
see Labor fighting this great new big tax on everything?
BOWEN: Of course we will oppose it. Of course we will oppose it in the parliament;
we will oppose it in an election, we will oppose it across the country. Of course we
would.
JOURNALIST: Scott Morrison said this morning in a number of interviews that
increasing the GST is just one option of many that is being considered during his
discussions with the States. Do you accept there could be other stuff that
Government could be considering and the GST might not be part of the way to raise
revenue?
BOWEN: Well Mr Morrison should be up-front. He should come clean with the
Australian people. He says it is only one of many options. But every day you open
the paper, you read more speculation from the Government, from Government
sources, about increasing the GST. Not from the Labor Party, not from your good
selves, from the Government, saying they are contemplating increasing the GST.
Well, if they are going to do that, be up-front with the Australian people. Tell them
now and we will have a proper debate across the country, one the Labor Party will
not shy away from one little bit.
JOURNALIST: If the Government went to an election on a platform to increase the
GST and won, would they then have a mandate?
BOWEN: Well we are working on the basis we will win the next election and we will
campaign against the GST, an increase on the GST up until Election Day.
JOURNALIST: But you are saying the people don't want an increased GST. If the
Government received a mandate surely they would –
BOWEN: Well, the proposition - the presumption in your question is that the
Government will win the election. That is one that I question.
JOURNALIST: Can I just ask on Knights and Dames, the Prime Minister today says
they have been scrapped. Has Labor got any comments on that?
BOWEN: Well they never should have been brought back. It was a farce, a joke, a
national disgrace that the Liberal National Government, of which Mr Turnbull was a
Cabinet Minister, decided to set the rewind button on Australia's national institutions
and reinstate Knights and Dames. I mean it was just a rolling farce. Of course we are
glad that this rolling farce has been corrected. With all due respect to Angus Houston
and Quentin Bryce and the other fine Australians who have received them, it is not
appropriate in modern day Australia, in 2015 that we are clinging on to the vestiges
of imperial Britain through our honours system. And we shouldn't be celebrating the
fact that Knights and Dames are gone, we should be lamenting the fact that they
ever came back under this Government.
JOURNALIST: Well to be fair, Malcolm Turnbull… It was a captain's call with Tony
Abbott, and he admitted that it was a captain's call -
BOWEN: Sure. I am making the point. It was a government. It wasn't you or me, it
was the Government of Australia which reintroduced Knights and Dames. Sure, Mr
Abbott was the leader of Government. All these people sat around the Cabinet
Room. We know that Mr Abbott didn't take it to the Cabinet, I accept that point, but
nevertheless, they were members of a government which engaged in this ridiculous
farce of imperial honours in Australia in 2015.
We might wrap it up. Thanks guys.
ENDS