Question to Josh Frydenberg, Assistant Treasurer - Intergenerational Report 2015

Mr HAWKE (Mitchell) (15:00): Will the Assistant Treasurer update the House on the implications in the 2015 Intergenerational report for Australia's tax system? Can the Assistant Treasurer tell the House if there are any risks to Australia's prosperity?

Mr FRYDENBERG (Kooyong—Assistant Treasurer) (15:00): I thank the member for Mitchell for his question and acknowledge the strong interest he has in public policy. The Treasurer recently released the Intergenerational report, a vitally important document that tells a very good story about how Australians are living longer and how their incomes are rising. But the impact of this on our tax system will be quite significant, particularly as the proportion of traditional working-age Australians to those over the age of 65 will decrease from 4.5 to one to just 2.7 to one over the next four decades. The trajectory of debt and deficit which we inherited from the Labor Party would have reached $5.6 trillion in four decades time, which would have condemned Australia to a higher tax regime.

Mr Champion interjecting—

The SPEAKER: The member for Wakefield will leave under standing order 94(a).

The member for Wakefield then left the chamber.

Mr FRYDENBERG: That is why through the legislated amendments that we have already passed through the Senate we will halve that debt over the next four decades.

I am asked whether there are any risks to that approach. I am aware of three big risks, and they all sit with those opposite. The first major risk is that the Labor Party are addicted to spending. We have around $30 billion worth of savings stuck in the Senate to which the Labor Party are opposed, including nearly $5 billion worth of savings that they took to the last election. Secondly, the Labor Party are addicted to higher taxes. Who could forget the drive-by FBT hit on the motor vehicle industry or the additional tax on people with self-education expenses or the $9 billion worth of taxes on the superannuation industry? Now they want to reheat the carbon tax and the mining tax, which were rejected by the Australian people. They also want to put a tax on some of Australia's largest companies and biggest employers.

Thirdly, Labor are a policy-free zone. They have no plan to fix the debt and deficit legacy that they left us. Exhibit A was that horror interview with Jon Faine on Friday the 13th when the Leader of the Opposition was asked seven times how he would pay for things and each time he failed to give an answer. Exhibit B was that famous interview on 7.30with Leigh Sales when he said:

If you don't know where you're going, any road'll take you there.

In that same interview, the policy-free zone was revealed. The Leader of the Opposition was asked:

LEIGH SALES: But Tony Abbott could call an election next year and you haven't yet started laying out to give Australians time to think about what you'd like to do.

BILL SHORTEN: That's a good point. I appreciate you raising that.

So much for Labor's year of big ideas!