PM Tony Abbott responds to Neil Mitchell on 3AW about whether adding a debt levy is a broken election promise. Courtesy: 3AWRadio

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has insisted a debt levy would not be a broken promise because it would be temporary.

According to News Corp Australia’s Terry McCrann, under the proposed levy workers on $80,000 will have to pay an extra $15 a week, or $800 a year.

The levy is understood to last four years and is designed to ease the deficit inherited from the Rudd and Gillard governments.

“I think if there was a permanent increase in taxation that would certainly be inconsistent with the sort of things that were said before the election,” he told 3AW this morning.

But Mr Abbott actively campaigned against new taxes before the last election.

“What you’ll get under us are tax cuts without new taxes,” he told reporters in 2012 and seen from this transcript below.

And he and his shadow Cabinet were scathing about using levies to fix the Budget.

The Coalition roundly criticised the Gillard Government’s one-year “flood levy” which funded reconstruction efforts after the 2011 Queensland and NSW floods.

Let’s compare what Mr Abbott and his team said about that levy with what he is saying about his preferred levy.

Tony Abbott talking about the debt levy today on Radio 3AW

January 29, 2014

Back from a break and we're onto pensions: "We said there'd be no change to pensions ... and we'll honour that" pic.twitter.com/Di9AoQkNvt — 3AW Melbourne (@3AW693) April 28, 2014

INTERVIEWER: Would you agree that it would be a broken promise?

ABBOTT: “I think if there was a permanent increase in taxation that would certainly be inconsistent with the sort of things said before the election.”

INTERVIEWER: So a temporary increase in taxation would not be a broken promise?

ABBOTT: “Neil, look, there'll be lots of argument about all sort of things in the Budget.

“But I am determined to ensure as far as we can that we can keep faith to all the commitments that we made to the Australian people before the election.

INTERVIEWER: And one of those commitments was no increased taxes.

ABBOTT: “One of those commitments was lower, simpler, fairer taxes. We want taxes going down not going up.

“But when you’re in a difficult position sometimes there needs to be some short-term gain for permanent and lasting gain.”

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, talking about the flood levy to the ABC

January 21, 2011

ABBOTT: “I’m opposed to unnecessary new taxes and that’s what this is.

“There will have to be very substantial Commonwealth Government spending as part of the recovery and reconstruction, phase but there’s a right way and a wrong way to find that money.

“The Howard government ran a tight budget and a strong economy in a way that this Government never will, and second you don’t need a levy here because there is out-of-control government spending which can easily be reined back and reprioritised.” (Full transcript here.)

Barnaby Joyce, also talking about the flood levy on the ABC

January 27, 2011

INTERVIEWER: “We’re yet to see all the detail of the levy. But it looks like low income earners will be protected plus the flood victims themselves. Doesn’t that make the temporary tax more equitable?”

JOYCE: “What this does show is that they’ve been playing a game with us the last few days. They’re prevaricating. They don’t even have the ticker themselves to be honest, upfront and tell us what they’re going to do. They’ve been so-called ‘testing the waters’.” (Audio)

Mr Abbott in a flood levy speech to Parliament

February 10, 2011

ABBOTT: “The government should pay for its mistakes. It should not try to make the people pay for its mistakes, which is why we have this unnecessary new tax.

“There have been cyclones before in this country, there have been floods before in this country, but never before has there been this kind of unnecessary new tax because there has never before been a government of quite this level of waste and incompetence.

“Why should the Australian people be hit with a levy to meet expenses which a competent, adult, prudent government should be able to cover from the ordinary revenues of government?

“It raises $350 billion a year and it cannot find $1.8 billion to meet what should be something that a prudent government could find out of its ordinary revenues.” (Full transcript here.)

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey in a flood levy interview with 7:30

February 8, 2011

INTERVIEWER: “But you don’t support the levy.”

HOCKEY: “Because the levy is not only significant for households, it’s the wrong time for Australia at the moment, Heather.

“You have depleted consumer confidence, you have rising interest rates, you have the Government flagging a mining tax and a carbon tax.

“This is another burden on Australian households and it’s poorly timed and it’s going to have an impact.”

He continued later: “The levy itself is the biggest levy ever imposed on the Australian people in a single year.” (Transcript)

Julie Bishop, deputy Liberal leader, on the flood levy

February 10, 2011

BISHOP: “This is not leadership; this is a lazy response from a lazy government. Its first response is always a tax.

“It is a shame that the Labor Party does not have robust policy debates within its cabinet, but the self-described zombies accept the lazy public policy efforts of the Prime Minister, whose policy record is a shambles on Medicare Gold, on cash for clunkers, on the citizens assembly and on the East Timor processing centre.

“This Prime Minister has no public policy feel. Her response is a tax.

“The government is incapable of showing any discipline when it comes to fiscal management. It cannot manage the money it already extracts from the Australian people.

“It will not be able to manage the tax it raises from this levy. The government should show some discipline. The government should not impose a tax on the Australian people. (Transcript)

Tony Abbott, moving to oppose flood levy legislation in Parliament

February 23, 2011

ABBOTT: “We think that government should live within its means; members opposite think that government should put its hand deeper and deeper into the people’s pockets. This is not the way to go.

“On this bill, as so often will happen in the course of the coming year as the government bids in this parliament to impose tax after tax, the battle lines will be drawn between a government which is addicted to tax and a coalition which is always searching to ensure that government lives within its means.

“As each day passes, it is clearer and clearer that we have a Prime Minister who has never seen a tax she did not like and never had a tax she would not hike.

“That is the truth and that is why we should oppose this bill.” (Transcript)

Tony Abbott looks back at the flood levy in an ABC interview

July 8, 2012

INTERVIEWER: In retrospect, do you think, though, you misjudged when you so vigorously opposed the Queensland flood levy?

ABBOTT: “Look that was only ever a temporary levy, but it did express the fundamental conviction Barrie, of the Coalition, that the ordinary business of government should be met out of the ordinary revenues of government.

“Sure, the Queensland floods were a big disaster. But they weren’t so big that we needed a new tax to pay for them.” (Transcript)