Senator CAMERON (New South Wales) (16:12): What we have in those who sit on the other side of this chamber is a government that is uncaring, a government that wants to hit the lowest paid in this country, a government that has a plan to introduce a GST of 15 per cent on the low-paid in this country. The government has had that plan since it came to government and it is doing it at the behest of big business. You cannot trust this government. Go back and look at the last election, when this government promised so much to the Australian people and where it said that it would not do certain things. But, as soon as it came to government, it set about ripping at the pension and ripping at social welfare and trying to take the rights away from working people in this country. The government took $80 billion out of education and health. It had the rhetoric of 'lifters and leaners'. So if you got some support from government, no matter how well deserved, you were a leaner and you had to make your way as an individual. All the privileged people on the other side of this chamber, who come from privileged backgrounds, do not know what it is like to not be able to put food on the table for your family and do not understand what it is like to struggle to pay your mortgage. It is quite clear why the National Party are so upset about this. The National Party should actually be standing up for poor people because poor people, as a percentage of the population, reside more in National Party seats than they do in other seats. Yet the National Party said absolutely nothing when that first budget was brought down. They just acquiesced to the ideology of the Liberal Party. They were in the true saying of how they are described here. They were the real doormats of the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party wiped their feet all over them in relation to that first budget. There was $80 billion taken out of health and education. Why was that $80 billion taken out? It was because they had a plan that they wanted to force the states to push for a GST. That part of their plan worked because some state premiers are saying, 'How do we get any extra money unless we have a GST?' The reason that they are arguing for a GST is that that rotten mob over there took $80 billion out of health, out of education and out of resources for state governments in this country. They wanted to impose $7 on the poorest people in this country every time they went to see a doctor. They did not tell the public that when they went to the election. They wanted to increase the PBS. Every time you got a prescription you were going to pay more. They cut the pension. They cut the rate at which the pension would increase, which was an effective cut to the pension in this country, so retirees lost some of their benefits. Pensioners on the pension lost some of their pension. People on family tax benefit B lost money when their children turned six. Senator Canavan: Mr Acting Deputy President, I raise a point of order on relevance. This is actually a topic picked by the Labor Party, but Senator Cameron cannot seem to stick to the topic in seven minutes. It is such a weak matter of public interest that he cannot do that. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Williams ): Senator Canavan, there is no point of order. That is a debating issue. Senator CAMERON: I can clearly understand why Senator Canavan would want to shut this discussion down. Senator Canavan purports to represent low-income people, but every action that Senator Canavan has taken in here rips away at the living standards of low-income people. What I am trying to say here is that they are a government that cannot be trusted, so, when they stand up and say there is no GST there, there is a GST of 15 per cent waiting there. Peter Hartcher in The Sydney Morning Herald this morning exposed it. They asked the Treasurer that developed the plans for a 15 per cent GST. The GST is on its way, and the same people that lead this country sat around that cabinet table and inflicted all those problems on the community as a result of that first GST. This government has not changed one iota. The GST is about attacking those that can least afford it. You will pay an extra $3,200 a year if you get an increase of 15 per cent in the GST with no change to the base. If it ends up being on fresh food, health care, education, water and sewerage, you will pay an extra $6,200 a year. It will stand up and deny it, but it is clear. That mob over there and their minions out there—the Business Council of Australia, ACCI, the business groups—all want a cut to company tax, and how do they want to pay it? They want it to be paid— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order! Senator Cameron, address your comments through the chair, not through the gallery, if you would, please. Senator CAMERON: Through the chair: what they want to do is force the poorest people in this country to pay for a cut in business tax. The theoretical argument is that if you cut business tax you will create more jobs. Around the world, when you look at what has happened when business tax has been cut, the chief executive, the executives and the chairpeople of the board get more money and the workers get nothing. No more jobs are created. It is an absolute furphy that that is the position. But what will we have here? We will have everything becoming more expensive. The least well off will be hurt the most. You cannot trust them when they say there will be compensation, because they are an untrustworthy government. It is the thin end of the wedge for more tax increases from a government that say they are a low-taxing government. It is simply unfair to force a GST onto the workers of this country, who are battling to keep their heads above water now, just to give their big business mates that fund their campaigns more money. (Time expired)