Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

As the member for Kooyong knows, the Menzies era was the salad days of Australian economic policy in which little got done, in which Australia sat back and cosseted itself from the world behind the tariff walls and in which this divisive rhetoric began to grow and grow. We have seen it in other countries, too. In Britain, they talk about the 'strivers' and the 'skivers'. It is an attempt to suggest that the social welfare state is not a form of insurance but a form of simple redistribution. The very fact is, though, that if we look at the statistics over the course of a lifetime the majority of Australians benefit from the social safety net. That is why the Treasurer's rhetoric and the rhetoric of his predecessor, Treasurer Hockey, is so out of touch with the economic reality that our social safety net is there for all of us—for the moment in which the firm that we are working in shuts down and we lose our job, for the moment in which we suffer a horrendous accident and find ourselves disabled and for those old age pensioners who have worked hard all their lives until their bodies give out. Let's face it: the pension is the largest portion of the social safety net, so the rhetoric of lifters and leaners is a rhetoric squarely directed against older Australians, as economic journalist Peter Martin has pointed out.

With this bill we see the House finally putting effect to a bipartisan tax change, but we should not have been debating this bill now. We should have been in this House before 1 July debating this bill. If that had happened then Australians earning over $80,000 a year would be getting this tax cut right now; but, instead, the Prime Minister put his political interests ahead of the interests of Australians earning $80,000 and more. The consequence of that is that, if you are on $81,000 a year, you are not seeing the benefits of a bipartisan tax, and that is disappointing to those of us on this side of the House. We do not believe that the narrow interests of political parties should be put ahead of the interests of middle Australia. We would have been happy to debate this bill in the 44th Parliament to make sure that Australians got the bipartisan tax cut.

So, I ask again, as I was doing so before the member for Kooyong got a little over excited about his Menzian hero: will the Prime Minister, will the Treasurer, reveal the evidence that was given to them that this this tax cut could be implemented administratively rather than legislatively? This is another piece of evidence of the ineptitude of this government. This is a government which has lost control of parliament—the first government to lose control of the parliament in 60 years. Not since 1962 has a majority government lost a vote on the floor of the House.

Ms Henderson interjecting—

I hear the member opposite referring to the parliament of 2010 to 2013. As the member opposite would well know, that was a minority government and it certainly did a lot better in maintaining control of the parliament than this so-called majority government, which has to station staffers at the eight exits to the parliament because its members are so desperate to get out of the parliament, to leave their jobs, that they are happy to walk out of the parliament before the day is even finished. The members opposite talk about hard work, but when it comes to really doing the hard work they will knock off early. They look at their watches: 'Oh, 4.30', they say. 'Well, I am supposed to be here to five o'clock, but I guess I will knock off early.' So much for that rhetoric about hard work. I guess hard work is for someone else—

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

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