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

Here we are again, and the rolling chaos goes on. The government is trying to fix their mess and they cannot even get the scheduling of the bills right. They tell the Speaker it is will of the House, and something happens that is not the will of the House. Normally, such things are done through consultation. There is not even a phone call to say that the bills should be dealt with separately or together because, of course, they should be dealt with separately.

I can understand the wish of the Leader of the House and ministers opposite to try and squirm through this issue as quickly as possible, to have as little debate on this as possible and not to have the focus of the House on their incompetence. I can understand their sensitivities, but it is not going to be that way. It is not going to be that way because regional Australia deserves better. Regional Australia deserves a proper discussion about these issues. Tourism deserves a proper discussion about these issues. It will not be that way, because what we are seeing here today is a humiliating backdown by an incompetent Treasurer on the run.

The working holiday-maker tax measure was first introduced in 2015. I do not hold the current Treasurer responsible for that; he was not the Treasurer. Indeed, it is open to him to throw Mr Hockey under the bus, as is apparently the current trend in the government. Their current favourite occupation is to say: 'Joe's in Washington. He can't defend himself. We we'll just blame him.' He could be doing that on the backpacker tax, except he has made it his own.

He has adopted it, he has run with it, he has embraced it, he has sold it right across Australia—he has not actually sold it right across Australia because he does not get out to regional Australia all that much. He has not been out to face the farmers and the growers and the tourism operators about this tax, but he has certainly adopted it as his own policy. He adopted it at 32½ per cent—apparently, it was a great rate. Then he adopted it at 19—that was a great rate. And now it is 15, he announced in a press conference on Monday—which was immature and petulant even for him, and that is a big call, I accept. But even for him, it was an immature and petulant press conference, at which he said, very unwillingly, that he would reduce the tax rate to 15 per cent. Of course he said, that he was the grown-up, mature person in the room; he could do this. Then he said, in the next breath, the Labor Party can go and jump in the lake, which is something that grown-up and mature people say all the time, telling their parliamentary colleagues to go jump in the lake. That was the official position of the Treasurer. Obviously, he is not interested in a proper and sensible discussion about these issues. Feeling hurt, feeling sensitive, displaying his well-known glass jaw, he just petulantly said: 'Well, 15 per cent, take it or leave it. I'm not entering into any discussions.' Well, it is not that simple either.

What the Treasurer did not do is outline how 15 per cent is a competitive rate, how 15 per cent compares with New Zealand's tax rate, whether 15 per cent has been modelled in terms of the impact on backpacker numbers to Australia. He did none of that because he could not because the work had not been done. We know this is the epitome of policy on the run. This is the prime example of policy on the run. How do we know that? We know that from the government because the Minister for Finance, the nation's second most senior economic minister, was on Insiders 24 hours beforehand saying: 'We will not move from 19 per cent; 19 per cent is set in stone. We can compromise no further.' That was the nation's second most senior economic minister 24 hours before, and then the Treasurer comes out and says, 'Well, no, actually we can compromise and we'll go to 15 per cent.' It is even worse than that. We know from Senator Hinch, who was at the little garden party down at the Lodge the night before, that the Treasurer himself told Senator Hinch that there would be no movement from the 19, 'No movement.' That was in the afternoon. I did not go; I am not sure what time it was, but I know it was in the afternoon–that little garden party down at the Lodge. So that was even less than 24 hours beforehand.

We have the Treasurer saying, 'We won't move from 19,' and we have the finance minister saying, 'We won't move from 19.' I wonder who decided to move from 19, Mr Speaker? Maybe it was the Prime Minister. Maybe it was the member for Dawson. Maybe it was Cory Bernardi. Who knows? It could have been anybody who decided to move from 19, but we know it was the Treasurer who was pushed out the door, by himself, no joint press conference with the Deputy Prime Minister, to say: 'We will now move to 15 per cent'—as if that would be all okay, there was nothing more to see here and now the world can move on.

This has been perhaps the best example out of many, many possible examples of this government's incompetence, their arrogance most particularly, and their lack of consultation. There was no consultation about 32½ per cent and there was no consultation about 19 per cent with the sector. Of course, what the government's position was when they announced 19 per cent was that the parliament should pass it immediately and to say: 'How dare you delay it for a Senate inquiry. How dare you send it off for further examination. You should pass this immediately.' That is what the Treasurer and the Deputy Prime Minister said to this side of the House and to the crossbench, that we should have no further discussion. We said: 'No, actually this might need a bit more discussion. This might need to go to a Senate inquiry,' and thank goodness we did. The Senate inquiry brought forward the evidence from the horticulture sector, in particular, but also tourism and agriculture that 19 per cent did not meet the concerns of the sector, that 19 per cent was regarded as a rate which would see fewer backpackers come to Australia and that 19 per cent was not sustainable. Again, no wonder the government did not want a Senate inquiry, no wonder the government did not want that further examination of their policy.

The fact of the matter is there is one reason the tax is not 19 per cent, one reason alone, and that reason is the Australian Labor Party, because the National Party and the Liberal Party wanted to vote for 19 per cent last week. All of them sitting over there on the other side, who will vote for 15 per cent today, voted for 19 per cent last week. That is what they voted for.

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