STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Mr TAYLOR (Hume—Leader of the Opposition) (13:57): This treasurer has the opposite of the Midas touch. Everything he touches turns to the proverbial—another day, another hidden tax. This time it's a tax on babies.

Birth taxes, life taxes, death taxes—there's nothing this treasurer won't tax. He'd tax the afterlife if he could. Nothing signals a budget that's bombed more than a treasurer forced to make humiliating carve-out after carve-out to correct his screw-ups.

With every carve-out, he's unleashed unintended consequences. He's been forced to make exemptions for deaths, divorce taxes and taxes on family trusts. This time, though, he forgot newborns.

Will the Prime Minister force this economic lightweight he's appointed to run the economy to fix yet another blunder, or will he back his clueless treasurer just as he's backed his callous veterans' affairs minister? Australians know where the coalition stands. We will axe Labor's toxic taxes—every single one of them.

The taxes they're imposing on savings, on investment, on trusts, on babies, on aspirational young Australians, on small businesses and on farmers will all be gone. We will axe the toxic taxes of those opposite.