Senator BERNARDI (South Australia) (17:02): I have realised something that has been a crystal clear awakening for me, and that is that the term 'fairness' when used by those on the other side of the chamber is just another euphemism for socialism. Everything they have talked about to do with fairness in the tax debate has been about taking more money from taxpayers and giving that money to those who do not pay tax. Everything about their debate has been about increasing the revenue for government, not about cutting programs that are wasteful or ending the money shuffle. There has been no proposed radical reform of the tax system. It has simply been about getting more from fewer people. That is the Labor way; it is the socialist way—'We will continue to take and spend your money until there is none left.' You do not make everyone wealthier and lift a tide that all boats can float on by penalising those who are producing in the economy. We need to provide assistance and incentives for people to get out there and work. We need to provide assistance and incentives for people to get out there and start businesses, to employ and to invest. You do not do that by taxing people more. The gerrymandering that would go on according to the plan of those on the other side is designed to make it fair for them, who have all benefited from lucrative superannuation investment schemes and no thresholds and who have all benefited from negative gearing and the tax fairness that came in under a coalition government previously. But they are going to penalise future generations even more than they have. Let's remember this: there was no debt in this country seven years ago. The mob on the other side spent hundreds of billions of dollars that they did not have that our children—your children and my children—and successive generations of children are going to be forced to repay. They implemented policies that have wasted tens of billions of dollars that we are still living with the legacy of today. But, having said that, I want to thank Senator Moore for introducing this motion. It is not because of the wording—I understand there are spurious political games being played there—but because it provides an opportunity for those on this side of the chamber to talk about this and to prove that we are the thinkers. We are the people who are contemplating sincere and serious reform of the tax act. So for the benefit of those on the other side, rather than apportion any ideas to the government, I am going to outline briefly the Bernardi tax plan. This is an opportunity to provide incentives and true equity and fairness to the Australian people. Let's start with the inequality between single-income families and dual-income families. On a $100,000 income, there is about a $10,000 tax disparity. That means that if you are sole breadwinner in your family earning $100,000 you are going to pay $10,000 or so more tax than if two people are out there working. On top of that, if the two people who are out there working have children, they are going to be benefiting from the childcare rebate and a whole bunch of other rebates and assistance. The inequality continues to grow. So why don't we do something different? Why don't we say a single-income family with a dependent spouse or dependent children can benefit from multiple tax-free thresholds—maybe one for their spouse and half a one each for their child? This is about ending the money shuffle. It is about shrinking the size of government and making it truly fairer for individuals and families to determine what they want to spend their money on and get government out of it, because everything government touches turns to custard. Demonstrations of that have abounded again and again. If you want to get more radical—and the aristocratic socialists, the merchant bankers, would like this—you could look at something like having a massively high tax-free threshold. Senator Whish-Wilson interjecting— Senator BERNARDI: Of course, there would be no subsidies for vineyards or anything like that under that scheme, Senator Whish-Wilson. But, nonetheless, you could have a very high tax-free threshold so that anyone earning under, say, $50,000 a year did not pay any tax. Principally they do not now because of the money shuffle and rebates. On top of that, you could have a flat rate of tax for those earning between $50,000 and, say, $100,000 of 20c or 25c in the dollar and maybe a 30c threshold after that. You could lower the company tax rate to the flat rate of 25c in the dollar, and in compensation for these sorts of cuts you could abolish personal deductions, subsidies and rebates and all the things that increase the size of government and decrease the size of the private sector. As I said before, everything the government tries to subsidise or infiltrate or influence goes bad. We need to confront the demons that are within the Australian economy at the moment. That is simply that government is too big. Australians do not need more taxes. They need tax cuts. If you want to grow your economy you have to provide the incentive, and the incentives come from rewarding people for their efforts, rewarding people for taking risks. If you had a flat rate of tax after $50,000 or something, as I have demonstrated, you would not need capital gains tax exemptions or concessions, because people would be paying 20c or 25c in the dollar for every dollar, whether it came from a capital gain, speculation or from income. That sort of stuff, of course, is anathema to the socialists on the other side. It is anathema to them because it stops them having control over what people want to do for themselves. They love being able to pull the levers and strings and say, 'We will give you a bit of that, if you do this over there.' They are channelling their inner Bernie Sanders. Senator Dastyari gives me the thumbs up because I have no doubt that Senator Dastyari, in his heart, is a true socialist. He is cuddling up there to Senator Cameron, which is a creepy, creepy thing to do, but, nonetheless, they are two peas in a pod when it comes to socialism and taxes. Senator Dastyari: Madam Acting Deputy President, I raise a point of order. I believe Senator Bernardi was trying to insult me. I am not sure that he has succeeded in doing so, but I do feel— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator O'Neill ): What is the point of order? Senator Dastyari: I am seeking guidance on whether or not a senator is in a position to pass those kinds of aspersions on another senator regarding— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: There is no point of order. Senator BERNARDI: What I find interesting about that interjection is the fact that Senator Cameron has the dignity to accept that he is a true socialist and he is a Bernie Sanders, whereas Senator Dastyari on the one hand wants to embrace it, but is not prepared to. He is a bit of a chameleon; we understand that. We recognise the fact that he likes to be a bit of an actor. We have seen him perform on the ABC stage in the theatre there. His props are sometimes wrong and sometimes he does not know whether he is Arthur or Martha, whether he is coming or going, whether he is a socialist or a free marketeer, whether he is Labor right or Labor left. He is everywhere. I have seen him coming up to almost anyone in this chamber. It is spurious. I would say to you, Madam Acting Deputy President, in this place people will respect you if you are your true self and if you do not pretend to be something that you are not. I have lived by that all my life, as you would probably know, and if I could give any unsolicited advice to the socialists, the wannabe socialists or the denialist socialists on the other side, I would say, 'Be yourself.' If Senator Dastyari were asking me this, I would say, 'Just be yourself—people might not like you for it, but you will win their respect.' Having said that, they have failed, clearly, to adopt the Bernardi taxation plan of simplifying things, because from their point of view it is about controlling and influencing people and trying to coerce their behaviour. As I mentioned earlier, every notional saving—if only Hansard could pick up that I am putting 'savings' in air quotes—savings, for those on the other side, are bigger taxes. They are expenses for other people. That is the duality and the great hypocrisy of modern politics: they talk about savings but they are actually expenses. This is why the budget is never going to balance under those on the other side. What they put forward is a fraud. We need to allow individuals to make determinations about what they want to spend their money on, free of the influence or corralling of government. Let them choose the best type of child care for themselves by cutting the taxes and not having to subsidise it. It means not taking a dollar from someone, clipping the ticket in government and giving them back 90c or 50c or 40c in rebates. That only increases the size of government, and this is what this country cannot afford. This is a very hard word for me to say, as a conservative, but it is time for a radical rethink of how taxes are implemented in this country. If we do not, we will travel the path of other countries—that is, the reward for effort is gone and government gets bigger and bigger until it is no longer sustainable. We have seen it in Greece, we have seen it in Italy, we have seen it right through the European Union. We are seeing that America is struggling with debt problems and the polarisation of the community there. We want to avoid those issues in this country. The only way to do it is to shrink the size of government, to live within our means and to allow people the opportunity to make determinations, good and bad, and to live with the consequences, good and bad, of making their own decisions. That needs a radical rethink from those on that side of the chamber. But it is clear that those on this side of the chamber are starting to think seriously about how we can reset the tax system for the benefit of all Australians.