Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move the following motion:

That the House:

(1)notes that:

(a)when the Prime Minister deposed the Member for Waringah, he promised new economic leadership for Australia;

(b)the Prime Minister promised a significant tax reform agenda; and

(c)the Turnbull Government has said the entire reason for its tax reform agenda was to deliver personal income tax cuts for Australians; and

(2)notes that in the chaotic six months since the Prime Minister deposed the Member for Warringah, the Turnbull Government has:

(a)floated and then shelved plans for an increased GST;

(b)floated and then shelved plans for dealing with what the Government described as the excesses in negative gearing;

(c)backflipped on superannuation tax concessions;

(d)attacked Labor’s responsible plan for tobacco excise but now plans to adopt some or all of it; and

(e)floated and then shelved personal income tax cuts for Australians;

(3)notes that the only policies the Government has kept on the table are extreme cuts, including from the 2014 Budget, including plans for $100,000 university degrees, cuts to family payments, cuts to pensions, cuts to Medicare, and cuts to schools and hospitals; and

(4)condemns the Government and the Prime Minister for failing to meet their own tests, including failing to:

(a)provide new economic leadership;

(b)respect the intelligence of the Australian people;

(c)deliver any tax reform; and

(d)deliver a stable and competent Government but instead leading a Government wracked by chaos and dysfunction.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Maribyrnong from moving the following motion forthwith—

That the House:

(1)notes that:

(a)when the Prime Minister deposed the Member for Waringah, he promised new economic leadership for Australia;

(b)the Prime Minister promised a significant tax reform agenda; and

(c)the Turnbull Government has said the entire reason for its tax reform agenda was to deliver personal income tax cuts for Australians; and

(2)notes that in the chaotic six months since the Prime Minister deposed the Member for Warringah, the Turnbull Government has:

(a)floated and then shelved plans for an increased GST;

(b)floated and then shelved plans for dealing with what the Government described as the excesses in negative gearing;

(c)backflipped on superannuation tax concessions;

(d)attacked Labor’s responsible plan for tobacco excise but now plans to adopt some or all of it; and

(e)floated and then shelved personal income tax cuts for Australians;

(3)notes that the only policies the Government has kept on the table are extreme cuts, including from the 2014 Budget, including plans for $100,000 university degrees, cuts to family payments, cuts to pensions, cuts to Medicare, and cuts to schools and hospitals; and

(4)condemns the Government and the Prime Minister for failing to meet their own tests, including failing to:

(a)provide new economic leadership;

(b)respect the intelligence of the Australian people;

(c)deliver any tax reform; and

(d)deliver a stable and competent Government but instead leading a Government wracked by chaos and dysfunction.

The Prime Minister has given up governing. The Prime Minister and his new economic leadership are simply going down the drain.

We can date the birth of new economic leadership under the Turnbull government: 14 September 2015. Six months later, we can date the death of new economic leadership: 16 March 2016. This government has given up governing. The reason this resolution should be discussed in the parliament is Australians are aghast that after six months of the Turnbull promise nothing has materialised. I believe that many Australians had a hope that politics could be better after the change from Mr Abbott to Mr Turnbull. We knew that the job might be harder over on this side but we knew there was a chance to debate ideas, including tax reform. Six months later 'massive disappointment' is the overwhelming emotion of many Australians about the Turnbull government.

The Prime Minister and the Treasurer have failed the tests they set themselves. It was not Labor that set the test of new economic leadership. It was Mr Turnbull. He justified rolling the member for Warringah on the basis of new economic leadership. In that time, we have seen the constant retreat backwards from tax reform. There was going to be a white paper on taxation. The Prime Minister said in question time today: 'I'll tell you what is going on, people of Australia, in the due process and it will be at the budget.' But that is not, actually, what they have said before today.

Mr Turnbull, over here, thought it was easy being Prime Minister—'Roll Mr Abbott' and his inevitable destiny awaited Australia. The problem is, in the meantime, he promised a white paper on taxation. He then promised a green paper on taxation. Then we were going to have the budget. That has disappeared. Then what he promised was a tax statement. He promised a tax statement and then a budget. Then he decided, yesterday—in one of those Turnbullian sorts of excesses where I am not sure that his Treasurer was notified, but that is business as usual in the Turnbull government—'We'll skip the tax statement. I'll tell you at budget.'

Then we had Senator Fifield out there today—because it is hard to keep up with the lines of the day when they are the lines of the hour—saying, 'No, we might have a tax statement.' Today, again, we asked the Prime Minister, in a very straightforward fashion—it was a most polite inquiry for information—'What is your tax policy?' Yet again, what we have seen is the defining response of politics, in this country, in 2016. All the government could do, all the Prime Minister could do, was talk about us, because the opposition has put forward well costed, well funded responsible plans for the future. What we have seen this government do—and why we must, most certainly, talk about this motion—is move away from dealing not only with tax reform but also with housing affordability. This Prime Minister lets himself down.

He is not really Mr Abbott and I am not sure his heart is always in some of the scare campaigns of the more conservative elements of his party. I am not sure, in fact, the Prime Minister's heart is in a lot of what he pretends to be his policy now. But that is a resolution for another day. What he will not do is deal with housing affordability. He said that our plan on negative gearing—which is not retrospective, which is aimed at encouraging new housing, which is aimed at helping first home owners into the housing market—our policy of providing government support for new housing and non-existing housing is 'disastrous'. You can just hear him—the fingers running across the grand piano—saying, 'This is terrible.'

The point he has neglected to tell the Australian people is that Liberal and Labor state and territory governments have already scrapped first-home-owner-buyer schemes for existing houses and they use them, now, for new housing. If Mr Turnbull was right, why did he not say anything in the last five years when state and territory governments had been scrapping schemes and moving the priority to new housing? I understand some of the problem Mr Turnbull has. He cannot be captain-coach and play all 18 positions on a football field, can he? He has to let 'Guess who?' out-of-the-box occasionally. I am talking about poor old Treasurer Morrison.

We talk about the Prime Minister shrinking into his job. You should see the Treasurer. You need a microscope to find that fellow these days. The difficulty, I feel, for Mr Morrison in all of this is he said he has a passion—such a strong word; it is Morrisonian in context—for income tax cuts. The problem is, he has had his passion cooled. This poor old Treasurer must hate going to cabinet these days. Has this Treasurer won a single economic argument with Barnaby Joyce since he got there? I understand it must be very embarrassing to lose arguments to Barnaby Joyce. Not that we would know!

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