Senator WILLIAMS (New South Wales) (18:33): I find it amazing that those opposite would want to talk about tax. It is just amazing. Let us have a look at your record. Opposition senators interjecting— Senator WILLIAMS: We are getting a bit of a reaction! I must have touched a nerve. Let us look at your record of budgets and tax and income and expenditure. The last time you delivered a budget surplus, Senator Dastyari was six years old. There has been a lot of water under the bridge since then. Let us have a look at the record. I want to take you to fuel excise. When the Hawke-Keating government was elected in 1983, the tax on fuel was 6.3c a litre. When they left in 1996, that had grown to 34c a litre—6.3c to 34c. It was the Howard government that froze that excise at 38c. It grew from 34c to 38c and then it was frozen in 1999-2000. Yes, we want to bring indexation back now to fix our roads. That is why I support it—to fix our roads. Senator Bilyk interjecting— Senator WILLIAMS: Mr Rudd promised no new taxes. I wonder if Senator Bilyk can remember the luxury car tax. Do you remember the luxury car tax? There were to be no new taxes! That did a great job for Holden, didn't it? That really helped Holden get on their feet! Because someone worked hard and could afford an up-market car—let's tax that! Then there was the alcopops tax. That was going to solve all the problems of binge drinking. Then Prime Minister Rudd, I think it was—it was hard to keep track of the Prime Minister in the previous government; it was hard to know who was Prime Minister at any time—gave us the superprofits tax. That was going to generate all the revenue. Then Prime Minister Gillard was going to solve all the problems with that tax by bringing in a minerals resource rent tax. She did exactly that. She spent $16 billion, but the tax did not raise any money—a total of about $300 million over the years. Then there was the carbon tax, the carbon tax we were never going to have. It did absolutely nothing to reduce CO2 emissions in Australia. I do not think there would be one senator in this chamber who would not agree that, if you make money in this country, you should pay the tax in this country. That is fair. Life is about fairness and that is a fair way to be. We are well aware of the issue. My colleague Senator Heffernan has been pushing this barrow for a fair while, I can assure you. If you make the money here, you pay the tax here. We know about Google—why they are set up in Ireland—and we know about many of those other big companies, such as Apple. We know they are avoiding paying their share of tax. But I want to point out Labor's record on tax reform. It really is embarrassing. Do you remember former Prime Minister Rudd holding his 2020 summit? He invited the talented and the opinionated. He got out the butcher's paper and came up with his thought bubble on tax reform—the Henry tax review. We heard all about the Henry tax review. So important was the Henry review that Labor did not release it until just before the budget in 2010—even though it had been given to Treasurer Wayne Swan in December 2009. Why was it not made public? What were they hiding? This is their history on tax reform. What came out of the Henry tax review? As I said, the resource super profits tax, which was expected to raise $49.5 billion over five years. Yes—$49.5 billion—an academic's tax with little thought for practical consequences. In July 2010, the resource super profits tax proposal was replaced with the minerals resource rent tax—another complex tax, and I have mentioned the figures on that. The original MRRT estimate was that it would raise $10.5 billion in its first two years to July 2014. In fact, just $340 million was raised in net terms in that period—less than $20 per Australian. Senator Whish-Wilson: Have you got any figures there on cost shifting? Senator WILLIAMS: I will get on to cost shifting, Senator Whish-Wilson, and I will get on to transfer pricing. I will take your interjection. That is why I do not like transfer pricing one bit, especially when it comes to countries and governments buying our farms, growing the food and taking it back to their country. I will give you an example: if a foreign country buys a property and it costs them $1 million to plant a crop of wheat, and it might be a good season and they harvest $2 million worth of wheat. They actually sell that wheat back to their country for—guess what? One million dollars. The country buys the wheat at half price. Costs are $1 million; income is $1 million. No profit, no tax—they just transfer it overseas. It is wrong, and that is why I am very pleased to say that Treasurer Joe Hockey is leading the fight on this very issue. No doubt this will be raised at the G20 in Brisbane in November and discussed at length. I agree with you, Senator Whish-Wilson—this has to be a global effort. The countries have to combine together to share information on those who are dodging tax in this country, and any other country around the world. I am sure those in many countries see money transferred out of their country and tax avoidance by the big end of town, when they need to pay their fair share in those countries as well. It is Treasurer Joe Hockey who is leading this very fight to capture those in the net who make the money in this country to pay the tax in this country. If they do not, who is going to pay the tax? The small Aussie battlers, the small businesses? Or are we going to go down the road of Labor, which we do not want to go down, of more budget deficits, more borrowing—in other words, mortgaging our children's future away. That is certainly not sustainable, and it is a road to a brick wall. We have seen what the previous government did—$240 billion of government budgets in just six years and hence the $340-odd billion of gross debt we have today. As I said—and I know my colleague Senator Heffernan will certainly continue this argument in far more detail than I have given this chamber—if you earn the money in this country, you pay the tax in this country. And I welcome Senator Heffernan's phone ringing, and countries working together—starting off with G20 in November, with Treasurer Joe Hockey leading the reforms.