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senate vote 2016-12-01#16
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2016-12-09 04:11:42
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Title
Bills — Income Tax Rates Amendment (Working Holiday Maker Reform) Bill 2016 (No. 2); in Committee- Income Tax Rates Amendment (Working Holiday Maker Reform) Bill 2016 (No. 2) - in Committee - Don't insist on amendments
Description
<p class="speaker">Mathias Cormann</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">That the committee does not press its request for amendments not made by the House of Representatives.</p>- The majority voted in favour of [not insisting](http://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2016-12-01.207.1) on the amendments the Senate had previously voted for but the House of Representatives had voted against.
- This means that the Senate can now decide on whether to pass the bill as it is (that is, without those amendments).
- ### What is this bill?
- The Government has already tried to pass this bill once in November but was unsuccessful because the Senate [wanted to make changes](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/divisions/senate/2016-11-24/2) to the bill that the House of Representatives [didn't agree with](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/divisions/representatives/2016-11-24/2).
- It is part of a series of bills to change the income tax arrangements for working holiday visa holders. If passed, they will mean that visa holders will be taxed from the first dollar earned, rather than having the usual tax free threshold.
- The [original version](http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:legislation/billhome/r5740) of this bill would have applied a tax rate of 19% for visa holders earning up to $37,000. This [new version](http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:legislation/billhome/r5790) will apply a tax rate of 15%.
<p class="speaker">Penny Wong</p><p>I rise to speak on the message. I want to make a few comments—yes, those opposite should probably leave. To be fair, you could stay if you would like, because we could talk for a while about the nature of the deal and listen to the sort of agreement that you have engaged in. But I think the first and most important thing to know is this: the government that says they are all about budget repair, making sure the AAA credit rating is safe and making sure that they are fiscally conservative, yet they have just blown $100 million on Scott Morrison's pride. What a joke! One thing I will say is that clearly they are not taking Tony Abbott's advice. Remember, we saw Tony Abbott on Sky News saying that the state of the budget should be the primary focus. Well, clearly on this matter, Mr Turnbull has decided, 'No, I'm not going to take your advice.'</p><p>Let's understand the cost of what is involved here. One of these is that the cost of going from 15 per cent to 13 per cent was about $55 million. That was, of course, the proposition that Senator Lambie, Senator Hinch and Senator Culleton put forward—that we should go to 13 per cent. That would cost about the same as what the component of the coalition-Greens deal that deals with superannuation costs. I would like to just this point out to Senator Culleton, Senator Hinch and Senator Lambie: your deal cost less than what the government has done, but they clearly were only prepared to deal with the Greens. I do not know how that makes you feel or what sort of political message that gives you, but it is very clear.</p><p>But, of course, that was not the whole deal with the Greens. In addition to the 15 per cent, plus the superannuation guarantee changes, the government has chucked in $100 million for Landcare. The difference between what they could have had if they had been prepared to swallow their pride and come to an agreement with the crossbench and the Labor Party was $100 million. You have to ask yourself: why? Why would the federal Treasurer, in circumstances where we already have debt increasing and a deficit of the size that we have, put $100 million on the table just because he did not want to swallow his pride? It is just extraordinary, isn't it!</p> <p class="speaker">Jacqui Lambie</p><p>It's not his pride; it's his ego!</p> <p class="speaker">Penny Wong</p><p>I'll take the interjection from Senator Lambie. She says it is his ego—maybe it is. I find it bizarre. It is bizarre, but the whole handling of this backpacker tax has been bizarre. We had 32.5, 19 and 15, and now we have 15, but with a whole bunch of stuff on the side. The reason there has to be a whole bunch of stuff on the side is that the Treasurer could not, because of his pride, actually accept a change in the rate—which is a very odd position, because he had already accepted a change in the rate. Do you remember? We went from 32.5 to 19, and they were never going to move. That was the end of the line. Then they went from 19 to 15, and that was the end of the line, so he could not move from the headline rate. He had to find some other political fix to deal with this shemozzle. He did it by giving the Greens what they wanted on superannuation and giving them $100 million for Landcare.</p><p>It would be kind of funny if it were not so serious, because let us remember the context in which we are operating. Last week, Deloitte Access Economics' <i>Budget Monitor</i> predicted yet another deterioration of the budget which could jeopardise Australia's AAA credit rating. The deficit under Deloitte's predictions could blow out by $24 billion over the forward estimates, which would make a return to surplus in 2021 even more difficult. I note that the Treasurer has in fact become a lot more loose and fudgy in his language when it comes to that surplus date. Under this government, Mr Turnbull, Mr Morrison and the Minister for Finance, Senator Cormann, have delivered a budget deficit for 2015-16, which is eight times bigger than what they inherited, as assessed independently by the secretaries of Treasury and Finance in the 2013 Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook. The 2013 PEFO—which was not prepared by me, as the former finance minister, or by Mr Bowen, but prepared by the secretaries of Treasury and Finance—had a budget deficit for 2015-16 that was far smaller than what is occurring under this government. Their budget deficit for 2015-16 is eight times bigger.</p> <p class="speaker">John Williams</p><p>Why did you blow our savings?</p> <p class="speaker">Penny Wong</p><p>I will take the interjection from the National Party. I hope Senator Williams is feeling very good about cuddling up to the Greens. One of the more interesting tweets I have seen in the last few hours was from Barnaby Joyce, praising the Greens. Senator Rice, I hope you are happy about that—Barnaby Joyce!</p> <p class="speaker">John Williams</p><p>You are very upset!</p> <p class="speaker">Penny Wong</p><p>Oh, I am not. No, not at all. You can have this, Senator Williams. You can have the political bedfellows of the Greens, and the Greens can have Senator Joyce praising them. I am sure their constituency would love the fact that Senator Barnaby Joyce, who stands for almost everything—</p> <p class="speaker">John Williams</p><p>He's not a senator; he used to be a senator!</p> <p class="speaker">Penny Wong</p><p>I am sorry. I apologise—you are right. It is because I knew him as a senator, so he keeps coming into my head. Mr Joyce, how could I forget! He used to stand there and yell a lot—at me, generally.</p> <p class="speaker">John Williams</p><p>He didn't yell!</p> <p class="speaker">Penny Wong</p><p>He did! At least he was more interesting than Senator Macdonald, who just chants my name. Senator Joyce—as he then was—was far more entertaining. But I was amused to see Mr Joyce's tweet praising the Greens, because I thought, 'Of all the people who voted for Senator Di Natale, Senator Hanson-Young, Senator Rice and Senator Siewert, I wonder how they'll feel about Mr Barnaby Joyce, who led the charge against action on climate change, against a price on carbon and, along with then Senator Minchin and his militia, against an emissions trading system.' Mr Joyce, who rails against renewable energy, who tells everyone how wonderful coal is, who does not believe that anything is happening to the Great Barrier Reef and whose position on a range of other social issues I would hazard a guess would not be shared by a single Greens voter. But, of course, politics does make for some strange bedfellows, and we have Senator Rice—who is in the chamber—and Mr Joyce on the same page. Well, it is up to the Greens to explain that to their constituency. I will have a bit more to say about that in my next contribution, but, first, I want come back to the budget position.</p><p>As I have said, for all their chest-beating and talk about budget deficits, the 2015-16 budget deficit is eight times bigger than that inherited by this government. Let us remember that. Net debt is increasing, gross debt is increasing, and we are seeing rising deficits compared with the trajectory that the secretaries of Treasury and Finance—not political operators, but the secretaries of Treasury and Finance—assessed in the 2013 PEFO. We have seen a tripling of the 2016-17 deficit and debt. Remember the debt? Remember how there was all this talk about intergenerational theft and all of these things? Well, net debt for this year has blown out, I think, by more than $100 billion.</p> <p class="speaker">Deborah O'Neill</p><p>Such great money managers!</p> <p class="speaker">Penny Wong</p><p>And they tell us they are the great money managers! Add the deal with the Greens today to that. When you have a $100 billion blow-out in your net debt—it is true that $100 million is only a small proportion of that, but what it does show is an attitude. It shows, if I may say, a pig-headedness, a stubbornness. It shows that the Treasurer is more interested in trying to gain a political advantage than coming to a sensible agreement. The reality was that even the National Farmers Federation were happy to accept 13 per cent. Although it is disappointing that the once-proud NFF, who were prepared to stand up on a whole range of issues, have turned into such patsies of the government that, on Sky TV, they would back in 13 per cent, and then it is a case of, 'Oh, I got a call,' probably from Mr Joyce's office, and all of a sudden, 'We'd better put out a press release saying we really support 15.' I mean, it is really quite pathetic. I hope the NFF understand that everybody in this place noticed what they did. You do not get respect in national politics by simply being the patsy of a political party, and I think that was demonstrated today.</p><p>So back again to the AAA credit rating. We have a Treasurer who is so pig-headed he wants to do a deal that costs more. I am going to say that again: the Treasurer wants to do a deal that costs him more. As yet we have not heard from the government why it is so critical that they increase funding to Landcare and that they decrease the superannuation guarantee clawback. I think the reality is that this has been such a shambolic mess they just had to get a deal, and it is clear that the stubbornness of the Treasurer meant they had to get a deal where the headline rate did not change. Behind all of this, there is a serious proposition: if we lose our AAA credit rating, it is not just a theoretical problem; it is a problem that affects the lives of families who have mortgages across the country. It also has an impact on confidence. It would have been more fiscally responsible and far simpler to respect the decision the Senate made yesterday.</p><p>This Prime Minister promised to fix the budget and he promised to create jobs and growth, but what is he delivering? He is delivering growing deficits, more debt, record low wages and record underemployment. Labor has been prepared to play a constructive role in repairing the budget in a fair way. We have proposed sensible revenue measures. But we have not been party to striking dodgy deals that strike a higher tax and cost the budget money. That is how much Mr Morrison did not want to give a win to Senator Culleton, Senator Lambie, Senator Hinch and the Labor Party. He is prepared to go with the Greens for a package that actually cost more. It is really quite an extraordinary political achievement, is it not? This is in the context of a budget where net debt is increasing, the deficit has increased and the AAA credit rating is under threat.</p><p>So, Senators, next time you get a lecture from Scott Morrison about the AAA credit rating and next time Senator Cormann, who is a very good negotiator, comes to you and says, 'We have to have more savings; you have to support us on this,' I think it is useful to remember that they were prepared to throw a lot of money at this. When the budget measures are coming through this chamber and they give us all another lecture about why poor people, Australians who are struggling, need to tighten their belts a bit more, maybe we should remember the attitude the government have had, which is that they are very happy to throw money at a political problem when it suits them. But, whilst giving us lectures about the AAA credit rating, whilst giving us lectures about—what was that Joe Hockey phrase? Ending the age of entitlement—</p> <p class="speaker">Doug Cameron</p><p>Lifters and leaners.</p> <p class="speaker">Penny Wong</p><p>Yes, lifters and leaners—I will take the interjection. They were very happy to give us lectures about lifters and leaners. That is the way the government talk. What I am going to point out to Senator Williams and Senator Cormann and all of those on that side as they start to talk about the budget deficit is that they were prepared to do a deal that cost them more just so that Scott Morrison did not have to swallow his pride. So do not come in here and give us all a lecture about fiscal rectitude, about the importance of savings. We all know that ultimately the politics comes first for this government. We have seen that this week, with the revelations around the $300 million of taxpayers' money they were prepared to give away to Western Australia to solve a political problem, and we have seen it again today, where they would rather do a deal with the Greens than come to a sensible compromise with the majority of the Senate.</p><p>I will have more to say later in this debate about the consequences for the Greens, and also for some senators opposite, of engaging in this. I would make the point that Senator Duniam and Senator Abetz and all of those who regularly rail against the Greens as being all sorts of things—they say all sorts of very nasty things about the Greens; I will not even repeat them—appear to be far happier to come to an agreement with them than with Senator Culleton or Senator Hinch or Senator Lambie or the Labor Party. It does say something about the government, does it not, that they would rather do that?</p><p>This is a government that was desperate for a deal. It has completely stuffed up the implementation of the backpacker tax arrangements. It was 32.5 per cent in the budget. We said at the time that would have a labour supply effect. We were told it would be fine, then they realised it would not be, and they engaged in a desperate scramble to come back from that rate as their base erupted. We have seen a range of different rates proposed and then moved away from, and now we have the cherry on the top of the cake—a deal which costs the budget more than what the Senate would have given them.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>
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