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

I thank you for your guidance, Mr Speaker. I do, as the second reading amendment points out, question whether, if the government cannot do something as simple as enacting a bipartisan tax cut, it is really up to running the nation. The question of being able to do simple things is at the heart here.

This is a bill which is belatedly delivering an income tax cut to middle Australia. This is a government which is able to do things on time when it comes to the top one per cent but which gets its homework in late when it comes to middle Australia. It is true in other areas of income tax as well. We are debating here a critical matter of income tax. One of the questions, when it comes to income tax, is the deductions that are applied to that income tax. We now know that the Treasurer and the Prime Minister were rolled in cabinet by the backers of the member for Warringah on their attempt to reform income tax deductions in the form of negative gearing. They took changes to negative gearing—

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