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

They have a plan to fix the budget but it is just that for the next year they have to put in a little adjustment to say, 'Actually, it didn't quite work out that way.' I wonder what we will see about these forecasts in coming years. We have a budget based on wages growth of 3½ per cent. As the member for Gorton well knows, wages growth of 3½ per cent might be called an heroic assumption. The Treasurer has decided that the recent up-tick in iron ore prices is permanent. It will also come as a relief to the House to know that with the temporary recent increases—which we all hope are there for a long time—the Treasurer has decided that it is okay. We can bank on those, and he will build his budget plans on them.

The Treasurer tells us that he has come up with a plan for jobs and growth. I have to admit—and I am going to give credit where it is due—this government's economic plan announced last night has done better than most of the economic plans announced by the Turnbull government. It has made it to day 2. It is a long-lived economic plan, this one, by the standards of the Turnbull government. The biggest reforms to Federation in our history did not make it to day 2. State income tax did not make it to day 2. The big sweeping broad tax reform that the Treasurer promised lasted a little while longer, but it certainly did not make it to budget day. Dealing with the excesses in negative gearing did not last too long either. So this plan is doing very well. By the standards of the Turnbull government, it is standing up very, very well to scrutiny. But what it is not doing well is standing up to scrutiny when it comes to its impact on the budget, because it is a 10-year plan.

What we have been told by the government is that we all have to live within our means. We all have to budget for the long term. What we have to do is make sure our decisions make the budget sustainable. So, of course, the obvious thing to do is come up with a 10-year plan and have a four-year costing. That is the obvious thing you do in this situation, isn't it? It makes eminent sense to everybody. The Treasurer thinks it makes eminent sense to everybody that you would have a 10-year plan, except not cost it over 10 years. Could you imagine what would happen if we proposed that? If we said that we had a 10-year plan but we were not going to cost it over 10 years, I think the Treasurer might have something to say about that. I think the Prime Minister might even decide to get himself excited about that. We have the centrepiece of the budget, the so-called jobs and growth plan—the plan for 10 years time—and the Treasurer cannot tell us how much it will cost over those 10 years. He managed to get costed over 10 years his cuts to schools and hospitals. That was important enough to cost over 10 years, but he did not bother to get costed the centrepiece of his budget—and he expects the House to endorse a 10-year tax plan, without knowing what it costs. He expects the Australian people to endorse a tax plan on 2 July, and he cannot tell them what it costs. This is fiscal recklessness, and we will not have a part of it. We will not be part of a 10-year tax plan which is unfunded and uncosted.

The Treasurer can lecture us about funding schools and hospitals and how it should be paid for, and we will remind him that his policies need to be paid for as well. He cannot pay for them, because there is a small little technical detail: to pay for something, you need to know the cost of it! That is how it works. You have to work out the cost before you can work out how to fund it. It is a pretty basic process, which the Treasurer seems to have forgotten. I understand he was rushing it. He had a week less than he thought. But he still could have thought to cost the centrepiece of the budget. This shows the hypocrisy of this Treasurer, who is simply not up to being the economics minister of a G20 economy, as we have been shown time and time again over recent days.

We also know that the Prime Minister promised substantial tax reform. He promised it last Sunday on the Chris Kenny show. He told us it was substantial tax reform. We have seen what substantial tax reform is—a $6-a-week tax cut if you are on $87,000. But, credit where credit it is due. There is some substantial tax reform in the budget. If your annual income is $1 million, you get a $16,750 tax cut. That is substantial—I grant you that. Sixteen thousand dollars a year—that is substantial. We give points to the Prime Minister for that. We acknowledge that that is substantial.

But we should not be too harsh on the Treasurer. It is his special day—his budget. It may be his only budget, so I am going to try and find things in the budget that I like, that we can endorse. I have looked through it and I have found some.

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