Page 4231 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 26 November 2013
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major reform, there was no other analysis done. It is either inept or calculating not to know what the effects were.
Mr Barr: Or it has all been released, Brendan.
MR SMYTH: Or it has all been released, which is very little—very, very little. Again, I point out that the Treasurer says that this is an overview of the relevant modelling and analysis. So the question is: what other documents are there? Is it simply that that is all we have got that defined the tax reform that the Treasurer has got? There it is? That is it with an overview attached? That is the entire sum of what the Treasurer based this reform on?
Mr Barr: And the tax review.
MR SMYTH: Sorry, and the tax review.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, Mr Barr! Do not interject.
MR SMYTH: That is another document. That is the entire sum of what all this reform was based on? One would be incredulous if that were the case.
The Treasurer himself initially thought he would seek privilege. Then he checked and he did not need privilege, probably because nothing else was done. But in regard to this motion, this is a serious issue when a parliament asks for documents. Ministers have been chastised in various parliaments, and ministers have been taken to the High Court by other parliaments, to assert their right to access documents.
The irony of all of this is that yesterday there was a magnificent headline in the Canberra Times about Mr Rattenbury going to make everything available, basically. He thought everything should be on the table. But today we cannot find anything to table and we cannot find support from Mr Rattenbury, who at some stage will table a bill to make the FOI more important, more effective. How about he starts today by enforcing the right of the parliament to call for documents?
If you believe that they are the only documents that exist that inform 20 years of reform, good luck to you on that. I certainly do not believe it. If the documents existed that proved the opposition wrong, we would not have the situation where all we get from Mr Barr, his only defence, is a three-word slogan. Well, disprove the three-word slogan. Table the documents that disprove it. You cannot. You could have ended this argument any day, but the argument continues because you cannot disprove what we say. That means that you are either inept and you have not done the work or you are hiding the work because it proves that we are right. That is the problem for the Treasurer. Both are probably quite plausible.
This will not end here. I will examine what has been said today. I will read very carefully the words that Mr Barr says—once you get through all the vitriol, there will not be much left to analyse—and the reiteration of the policy itself. It is interesting that he never engages in debate when he is in trouble. He never engages in debate on
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