Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Of course the opposition will resist this move by the Treasurer. The Treasurer says we have seen a shabby process. That shabby process is called parliamentary debate and a vote of a chamber of parliament, the other place, and it is a vote the government lost. It happens from time to time. From time to time, governments lose votes. I know it does not happen in this place very often but it does happen in the other place, and the Treasurer has to get used to it. He lost a vote, get over it. Get over it. He lost the support of the crossbench. It happens. It is not a shabby process. It is called democracy. It happened to us from time to time when we were in government. We had to deal with it. It is called losing a vote. I know the Treasurer is used to getting his own way in this House, I understand that, but in the other house you actually have to talk to people.

In the Senate, senators expressed a view which was in accord with that of the opposition, a consistent view that the opposition have had. The Treasurer says he is surprised at the Labor Party's point of view and he says we should have told him that we support tax transparency. Well, the Labor Party have been arguing that for months. And, yes, the Treasurer is right about one thing: he says the Labor Party lost a vote in the Senate a couple of weeks ago about tax transparency. Yes, that is correct. We understand that; we lost the vote. And last night, we won a vote on the same issue because the crossbench were persuaded by our arguments. What happened was—

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