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

On this the last sitting day of the term, the House is being given a very special opportunity to see the special mix of arrogance and incompetence that this Treasurer holds and to see the dysfunction at the heart of this government. The Treasurer has just announced a deal. He tabled a letter on Treasurer's letterhead. The letter on Treasurer's letterhead is signed by Senator Di Natale of the Greens. The Treasurer just gave us a stirring address. He talked about the ABCC; he talked about many things. He did not mention the fiscal impact of the deal he has just done. He did not mention the impact on the budget. He did not mention what it will cost the budget. I feel obliged to inform the House that this Treasurer has done a deal which gets a higher tax rate and makes less money for the budget. That is what this Treasurer has committed to do. Guess what? It gets better: the government could have accepted an offer for a 10½ per cent tax rate. They said: 'No, that'd be too expensive. That'd cost too much.' So we offered another compromise. In the spirit of compromise, we offered 13 per cent. But, no, that was going to cost too much. So what the Treasurer has done is he has done a deal with the Greens to water down the measure on superannuation and to spend $100 million extra on Landcare, which will cost the budget more money than doing a deal on 13 per cent would have done or doing a deal on 10½ per cent would have done. It takes a very special mixture of arrogance and incompetence.

I served in parliament when Peter Costello was Treasurer. I have seen arrogance in a Treasurer. But what I have not seen is this mixture of arrogance and incompetence in a Treasurer. This Treasurer is so full of himself, so refusing to accept reality. The Australian people are entitled to ask: how much do they have to pay for this Treasurer's arrogance? How much is his pride worth if the Australian people have to tolerate a deal which has a headline rate much higher than New Zealand's, which will mean that we remain uncompetitive? But he was so determined not to give in. He is a big tough guy. He is so determined not to give in to this side of the House that he does a deal with the Greens, which is worse for the budget than a deal with us would have been. This is what this incompetence has led us to.

This is the coalition of the unwilling. We have One Nation; next, the Greens, the Liberals and the Nationals; and what do you get as a result? You get a worse budget deficit. That is what you get with this coalition of the unwilling. Congratulations, Treasurer. Congratulations on doing this deal. You have managed to do a worse deal for the taxpayers, a worse deal for farmers, a worse deal for the tourism sector and that is how you finish the year of achievement. We are more than happy for you to keep ongoing, because more of this sort of achievement, more of this sort of incompetence, more of this sort of arrogance will see this government's reputation worsen even more. You might not have thought it was even possible, but we will see this government's reputation sink even further. If this is the big idea, the big initiative to save this Prime Minister's leadership, we will have more of it. I do not think it is going to work. I think the deputy leader of the Liberal Party is quite happy with this deal, because I think when she takes over the Prime Minister and the Treasurer will be sitting up the back. I suspect that is what is going to happen. And so they should, with this special mixture of arrogance and incompetence which the Australian people have not seen before.

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