MOTIONS

Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith—Assistant Minister for Immigration and Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade) (16:27): The taxation system in Australia is broken. When a teacher, a nurse or a police officer working hard to try and get ahead is paying more tax than someone who is simply buying and selling assets, that system is broken. That system stinks.

That system is unfair. Our government is determined to fix that system to make sure that it works and to ensure that we're incentivising and supporting hardworking Australians who are trying to get ahead, not punishing them simply because they can't afford to own investment assets. Who is opposing the reforms that our government is putting to the parliament?

None other than the opposition, but they're not alone this time. We've got the Liberal Party. They've teamed up, of course, with their friends in the Nationals, but they've been joined in recent times by—I don't know if you can call them their enemy, but they're friends for this purpose—One Nation.

So here you have the Liberals, the National Party and One Nation. A coalition of crackpots have come together to oppose the sensible reforms that the Labor Party and the government is putting to the parliament. Opposition members interjecting— Mr THISTLETHWAITE: I must have hit a nerve.

The SPEAKER: The assistant minister is going to pause. I want to hear from the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Representatives. Mr Hastie: He's one of the most respected members on their side, and he's better than that.

The SPEAKER: If we're going to refer to the coalition, we'll just refer to them as 'the coalition'. Please withdraw the unparliamentary term that was made to members of the House. Mr THISTLETHWAITE: I withdraw.

Imagine the first meeting of this said coalition. Imagine when they came together. You've got the Leader of the Opposition, Senator Canavan, the member for New England and Senator Hanson talking tactics about how they're going to oppose sensible reform.

But I think we all would love to know who's going to be the leader of this said coalition. If you go on raw numbers in the parliament, then it probably should be the Leader of the Opposition. But, when you look at recent polling and you look at recent trends, the trend is not his friend.

The trend is not his friend, particularly when you look at the outcome of the Farrer by-election, where we know the Liberal Party lost a blue ribbon seat to their friends in One Nation. And the ironic thing is that they did it on the back of preferences from the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party helped One Nation get up in the Farrer by-election.

Fantastic. Great move. Well done, Leader of the Opposition; you helped elect One Nation to one of your blue ribbon seats.

This motion should be opposed— Debate interrupted.