Tax is one of the biggest costs to this country and governments are not spending it wisely. Tax reform is in the ‘too hard’ basket for both parties but the country is dying without it. Take for example the GST. When it was introduced, the State Governments promised to abolish 6 different taxes to make up for it. Every single one of them is still being slugged on Australians.

Transcript

[Malcolm Roberts] G’day Marcus, how are you?

[Marcus Paul] All right. Did you have a steak in the last couple of days up there in Rocky for beef week?

[Malcolm Roberts] I had one of the best steaks I’ve ever had, mate.

[Marcus Paul] Really?

[Malcolm Roberts] I had beef in the Rocky Sports Club two nights ago. Absolutely delicious. Just melted in my mouth.

[Marcus Paul] Oh, nice. Now, that’s a really big event up there, of course.

[Malcolm Roberts] It’s huge. I don’t know how much it costs to support this and organise it, but it must be millions. It’s really well done. Very professionally done. It’s a really, really big credit to Rocky.

[Marcus Paul] Well, it attracted everybody including the prime minister of the country. He was there as well the other day.

[Malcolm Roberts] That’s right. They’re all taking credit for it. Whereas it’s really the beef graziers and the beef associations that need to take credit for it. And Rockhampton.

[Marcus Paul] Yeah. Well look, so long as we support the industry, that’s I think what’s vitally important now. Malcolm, as you know, there’s a couple of things certain in this life. One is death, the other is bloody taxes.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yeah. The tax levied on families in Australia is completely unreasonable. I mean, Joe Hockey himself, the former treasurer, said in 2015, a typical Australian works from January to June just to pay taxes. You lose half your money in taxes, that’s what he said. In 2000, I think it was the Australian Bureau of Statistics, you can no longer get these figures but I’ve got to confirm them. A person, the ABS, I think it was, said a person earning the average income pays 68% to government in the form of rates, taxes, levies, fees, special charges. That means that a person on the average income, which today is $80000, works from Monday to mid-morning Thursday paying for government. So, we’ve been fed a line that’s a complete lie. We’ve been told that the biggest purchase of our life is a house. It’s not. The biggest purchase by far of our life is government. Who sees value for money in that purchase in Australia?

[Marcus Paul] So you work Monday to Thursday mid-morning paying government, not only obviously in income tax, but all the other levies, charges, etc.

[Malcolm Roberts] Rates, fees, that’s it. That’s it, Marcus. That’s far too high. People don’t mind paying tax, because they see that’s the cost of government. We’ve got to have defence, we’ve got to have police. Okay, we all get that. But tax also represents, when it’s wasted, when that money is wasted, Tax represents the cost of government waste. And that’s what people are paying for in this country. The abuse of their taxes by a government that is not accountable. That’s the problem.

[Marcus Paul] Why is it unfair, this tax levy? Why is it unfair? I mean, we’ve got multinationals that avoid paying probably their fair share. And I’ve discussed this at length with politicians from both sides of politics, but nobody can seem to come up with the right answer. I don’t understand why the burden falls on those most, I don’t want to say vulnerable. I mean, we all need to pay our own way and nobody can expect to get a handout for their entire life. Sure, from time to time, you might need a hand up. And that’s what the social service network is for. That’s why we have social security. But I mean for goodness sake, if we’re paying, as you say, you’re telling me we’re working Monday to Thursday mid-morning paying government in fees. Why is it then that big multinationals, why do we allow our administrators, our governments allow these big companies to avoid paying their fair share?

[Malcolm Roberts] You’ve nailed it. Let me give you some figures here. The deputy commissioner of taxation in 1996 and 2010, and his name was Jim Killaly, and I’ve met the man, I met him in early 2015, he said publicly in the media, that 90% of Australia’s large companies are foreign owned and since 1953, have paid little or no company tax. Jim Killaly, 1996, 2010. Now why is that? Well, it goes back to 1953 and the so-called double taxation legislation that was introduced by liberal prime minister Menzies. He made sure that legislation, that foreign companies don’t have to pay company tax. Bob Hawke, the labour prime minister in 1987, passed the PRRT tax, Petroleum Rent Resources Tax. The largest companies in the world and the worst tax avoider in the world, Chevron, other multinationals, are not paying tax and the Australian government gets virtually nothing for the gas that they tap into in the Northwest shelf and send overseas. We’re the largest exporters of gas and we get the least for it in the world.

[Marcus Paul] There was some figure that I think we talked about recently, where in, I can’t remember, it might’ve been WA, there was a gas exploration venture that was being undertaken whereby 5.3 billion dollars, I think that was the figure, worth of gas was shipped off overseas. Our gas prices haven’t come down as a result of it but the company involved, I won’t name them, but the company involved, paid a paltry, 300 odd million dollars in tax compared to taking away five point odd billion dollars worth of our natural resources. How on earth, Malcolm, do we allow this to happen?

[Malcolm Roberts] Exactly Marcus. The Japanese government levies an import duty on Australian gas coming into Japan. The Japanese government makes three billion a year on taxing Australian gas. So, they get that income. We get bugger all. And that’s the fact, because both the liberal party and the labour party over many years, it’s not just a few, it’s decades, over many decades, have allowed this to occur. And they do that despite 90% of Australia’s large companies being foreign owned and paying little or no tax. And what that also means is that Australian companies that are working in this country have to pay 30%, their company tax. That means they’re immediately behind the eight ball when it comes to competing with these multinationals. So, it’s just completely unfair.

[Marcus Paul] All right, well, maybe that is a short term fix to tax foreign multinationals more appropriately. I mean, tax reform is difficult. We know that the liberal Howard government introduced GST in return for states dropping six taxes, yet all are still being levied, including in my opinion, the most ridiculous crippling tax of all, payroll tax. I mean, that hits employment and it penalises those taking the risk by setting up business and in fact, people, these businesses employ people. Why on earth are we penalising businesses for employing Australians?

[Malcolm Roberts] Exactly, Marcus. We all know, everybody knows, you don’t need to be well educated to understand that when you tax something, you get less of it. So, why are we taxing payroll? Because that’s a tax on employment. When you tax employment, you get less of it, but let’s have a look at some of the so-called tax reform in this country. As you said, in 1999, liberal prime minister Howard introduced the GST, in return for the states promising to drop six state taxes. Every one of those taxes is still levied. In 1985, Paul Keating first called for a GST, the labour treasurer at the time. He almost got it up and Bob Hawke went wobbly at the last minute and they dropped the GST. Later, despite being the first person to talk about a GST in this country, Paul Keating reversed his position to belt John Houston on the GST. And he won the unwinnable election.

[Marcus Paul] Yeah, of course.

[Malcolm Roberts] In 1998, there was a transaction tax proposed by somebody. Quite, quite good thinking going behind it. Peter Costello, the treasurer. He did a pretty good job in my opinion. Peter Costello, even he, when it looked like they could smash this politician over the transaction tax, he turned around, and even though he said earlier, that it was… Well it had quite a bit of merit and it looked good, he then used it to belt that politician. So, he trashed that opportunity. So, what the point is here is that both the parties attack someone else whenever they raise a system of proposed change for taxation. We all agree, right around the country, that the taxation system, it needs to be reformed completely around. It is the most damaging system in this country. Australians pay far too much tax, multinationals pay bugger all, but the point is this, every time someone puts forward a tax reform system, the party politics is played and it’s smashed. What we’re seeing is the liberal and labour and national parties too busy protecting themselves and they’re sacrificing the country to the worst and most destructive system in the country. What we need to do is to approach this in a far more effective sense, because we can’t continue as we are. So, what I would suggest is what we need to do is make sure we have agreement that the tax system has failed and must be changed. And then, instead of getting into the details, agree on the basic principles, things like fairness, equity, transparency, efficiency of taxation. Our taxation system is so inefficient. And then once the principles are established, out pops the solution in the form of a system. We’ve got to front up and be honest that this system is so bad at the moment and we’ve got to come up with a new way of addressing this politically.

[Marcus Paul] All right, Malcolm, good to have you on the programme as always. We’ll chat again next week.

[Malcolm Roberts] Look forward to it, Marcus. Thanks, mate.

[Marcus Paul] All right, One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts.