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

I move the motion. The only question before the Australian people is: is this government incompetent or is it dishonest? It is quickly becoming apparent that it is managing to do both. It has managed to be incompetent and dishonest about its budget. Its centrepiece measure is a fraud—its centrepiece measure is a fraud on the Australian people—and the Prime Minister is being dishonest about the reasons that he will not be honest about the cost. The Prime Minister is not only covering up the cost of the centrepiece of his budget; he is covering up the reasons why. He should learn the lessons of history. As Richard Nixon learnt, it is always the cover-up that gets you. The Prime Minister seems to have forgotten that point.

The Prime Minister is being tricky with the Australian people, and he is being dishonest as he goes about his incompetence. We learnt today the Prime Minister is going to lock in the cost of his tax cuts over 10 years, but he will not even tell the parliament or the people what the cost is. He seriously seeks to come into this House and put legislation before the Australian people, and he will not tell the parliament or the people the cost of his plans. This is the height of arrogance and incompetence. No wonder the Australian people think this bloke is out of touch—because he is. He thinks that $55 billion is a small amount of money, apparently. He does not realise that the Australian people think that maybe that money could be spent on schools and hospitals. It could be spent on budget repair. But, no, the Prime Minister has to also be dishonest about why.

He said in question time today that budgets never include a 10-year cost in dollars—that that never happens. He has forgotten he was a cabinet minister in a government with a budget that did. When the member for Warringah cut $80 billion out of health and education, at least he had the guts to be honest about it. At least he had the courage to tell the Australian people what he had done. The member for Warringah would have told us the 10-year cost, because we know he has form. When he was cutting schools and hospitals, he managed to tell the Australian people. At least the former member for North Sydney managed to be honest with the Australian people as he was going about his incompetence. This Prime Minister is so bad he has managed to be dishonest and incompetent all at once.

The Prime Minister has been found out. He thought he could bring in a 10-year plan, a 10-year cut to the company tax rate, but not explain what it costs over 10 years. You just cannot do that. The Prime Minister lectures us—lectures the parliament, lectures the Australian people—about living within our means. 'We've got to live within our means,' he says. But he decides to change the means. He decides to reduce the corporate tax rate and reduce the means of funding schools and hospitals, and he just cannot be honest about it.

What a budget. What a budget. And what a launch for an election campaign! The Prime Minister is off to see the Governor-General in the next couple of days, and he launches his election campaign by not being honest with the Australian people—and not even being honest about the reasons he is being dishonest with the Australian people. He could just come clean, stand at the dispatch box and reveal the cost.

He says the Treasury has modelled it. We were not sure whether he had been incompetent. Now he says in question time today that Treasury has done the work—that Treasury has done the modelling. Well, stand up and tell us what the number is. Defend your decisions. You have decided to give away money; won't you tell us how much and defend it before the Australian people? Why won't you stand before the Australian people and say, 'You have a choice on 2 July. You can vote for Malcolm Turnbull, and I will give billions of dollars away for a corporate tax cut, or you can vote for Bill Shorten, and he will invest in schools and hospitals, and budget repair which is fair.' That is what he should do, but he will not. He will not tell the Australian people how much it costs and he will not be honest about why.

Can you imagine around the cabinet table, around the ERC table, the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the ERC saying: 'I think we'll get away with this one. I think we'll do a 10-year plan. They'll never notice it is a 10-year plan. They won't ask us what the 10-year cost is. It's a no-brainer. Of course we will get away with it.' That is what they would have said—'They'll never get onto us; they'll never notice it's a 10-year plan.' Then they forgot they had written into the budget that it was a 10-year plan. The budget says it is a 10-year plan. The Prime Minister says budgets do not include 10-year plans, but his budget does. It says it in there. I can tell you on which pages. He said on national television this morning there is a page where it outlines the cost. He is wrong. There is not. It shows a balance over the years, and—guess what?—if the Treasury can predict the balance then they know what the cost is. It is very simple. If the Prime Minister knows the answer he should tell the Australian people the answer. If he does not know, he is incompetent—but we now know he knows.

This is very simple—we are giving the Prime Minister an opportunity. We gave him one this morning; we moved a motion in the House inviting the Prime Minister to come in and clean the situation up. He had the opportunity to do that this morning but he did not. We are giving him the opportunity now. He had the opportunity 18 times on national television this morning. You are about to go to an election, Prime Minister, on a budget that is fundamentally dishonest, that is flawed in its conception—but you could at least tell the Australian people what the cost is. The Prime Minister is treating the Australian people with contempt. He had this all planned out for weeks; we know that. He went out into the Prime Minister's courtyard with his cunning plan, and he called us back for three weeks—that went well; two days later we were all on the plane home. He had it all mapped out for the 2 July election. He was going to bring down a budget and the budget was going to be the launching pad for an election—'Malcolm Turnbull in his rightful place as Prime Minister of Australia after all these years,' he thought to himself, and he was going to use the budget as the launching pad.

There was one little problem with that plan: his budget was a dishonest document. His budget was a flawed document. His budget tells us all about his priorities when it comes to tax—who gets a tax cut; who does not. Nobody under $80,000 a year gets a tax cut and somebody on $1 million a year gets a $16,750-a-year tax cut. He is so desperate to give big business a tax cut that he has decided to define small business as any business up to a turnover of $1 billion. That is how desperate he is. With all these priorities, all these grand plans and all these plans of attack, he has decided not to tell the truth about it. He has decided not to tell the truth to the Australian people. The Australian people can take the truth. The Australian people want the truth. The Australian people demand the truth from this Prime Minister. This is not the new economic leadership we were promised when he knifed the member for Warringah. This is not what his backbench was expecting. Wasn't the backbench excited during question time today? Weren't they—the members from Tasmania and the members for the Central Coast of New South Wales—just leaping out of their seats in excitement about the coming election? They were looking forward so much to going for re-election on a platform of redefining small business as any business under $1 billion.

Mr Pasin interjecting—

Mr Nikolic interjecting—

See this speech in context