Senator BACK (Western Australia) (15:20): It is a very good thing that the opposition members cannot see the looks of abject terror on the faces of those young people up in the gallery, because the longer they have been here in Parliament House the more they have come to understand what the impact will be on them as adults should Labor ever again get into government. What we have seen here today is an absolute effort on the part of the Labor Party to deny their own responsibility for where we are today. Be under no illusion. I suggest to the young people up there to get their pens out and take note. This is the statistic that I want you to record: in this country today, we are paying $1.2 billion a month not on repaying the debt but on paying the interest on Labor's debt—it goes out the window every day. Do you know what that money stands for? It stands for a new primary school every 12 hours. Twice a day, seven days a week, because of Labor's effort in government, you are losing the opportunity for a new primary school every 12 hours, or a new major teaching hospital every eight weeks. Every two months we are denied the opportunity—you are denied the opportunity—for a new teaching hospital. That is what we are discussing here this afternoon. Heavens above! All Prime Minister Turnbull did was to say, 'We need to have a conversation.' There is no proposal before this chamber or the other place for a new GST. What a short memory poor old Senator Collins has when she talks about the GST. Who was the first major proponent of a goods and services tax in the federal parliament? It was Mr Keating, the then Treasurer of this country. After the Liberal coalition government introduced a GST, what did Labor do in government? Over six years, I never heard a single word by Labor in government that they would rescind the goods and services tax. Have you? Has anybody? That is a good project for the young group: 'Go back to school next week, do the research and come back and tell us: did Labor in government want to remove the GST?' No, they did not. Senator Conroy: You've got an eight and a half from me now. Senator BACK: ACOSS, quite rightly, has had some modelling done. At least they have done something positive. What the coalition government—Prime Minister Turnbull, Treasurer Morrison, innovation Minister Pyne—have said is: 'Let's have a conversation about it.' What people need to understand with bracket creep is that many, many employees in this country are going to be on the top marginal tax rate—49c in the dollar. Let's reflect for a second. Do you know what the marginal tax rate is in Singapore for employees? It is 15 per cent—not 49 per cent but 15 per cent. That is the tax rate. The company tax rate in Singapore is 17 per cent. Look at those incentives. Senator Conroy: Incentives. How exciting. Senator BACK: We are the second-highest taxing country in the OECD. Only in the few minutes allowed to me do I want to comment on Senator Conroy's interjections with regard to the NBN. I remember when I came into this place in 2009 that Senator Conroy acted. People say it was written on a coaster; others say it was on a napkin. It was between himself and then Prime Minister Rudd, between Adelaide and Canberra. If it had been a Perth to Canberra flight, they might have come up with something a bit different. I remember asking Senator Conroy in my first days and weeks here: 'Where's the business plan, Stephen?' Do you know what we were told? 'You don't need a business plan for a multibillion-dollar NBN.' So I said, 'Where's the risk analysis? Where's the analysis that shows you the benefits and the costs?' All we ever got was, 'No, no, we're too good for that. We don't need to do that.' Eventually he was forced, kicking and screaming, to come up with some sort of model. I will never forget: the first opportunity to tell us how proud of it he was was at Midway Point in Tasmania. Senator Bilyk, sitting behind Senator Conroy, knows all about Midway Point. In the north of the state, all this technology was introduced in schools. It failed, like Labor will fail should they get back into government.