Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The honourable gentleman ended on a nice note but prior to that he called all of my colleagues galahs, magpies and all sorts of things. It was quite unfair, coming from this government. He just indulged the House with 10 minutes of confusion, with incoherent meanderings like some sort of muddleheaded wombat at the dispatch box, giving us all his bons mots of wisdom. You can just see the enthusiasm on the backbench. I do not think Keith Pitts heart has raced that much. Now he really is excited!

But you cannot blame the minister for such a confused, incoherent meandering history lesson when this is a government that has had two prime ministers, three defence ministers, a couple of treasurers, a dozen other ministerial changes and a revolving door in the National Security Committee. Who knows what comes next out of this government. They wander from one end of the horseshoe to be other. They have spent all this time defending banks against a royal commission. We get these arguments from the Prime Minister in question time. He says, 'Royal commissions are a lawyers picnic.' You guys held one into trade unions and one into roof bats, constantly referred to them and made many lawyers very rich, yet you rock up in the House with the argument, 'It's a lawyers picnic and we couldn't possibly have a royal commission into the banks.' You have to think, 'How does this government's mind work?

In order to avoid a royal commission, they launched multiple inquiries and made multiple regulations, all on the rush, with nobody really know where they are going—anything but a royal commission. They come in here with this tough rhetoric against the banks but they neglect to mention that they are giving a $65 billion tax cut to corporate Australia—$7 billion of it going to the big four banks. I bet they are really angry. I bet they are quaking in their boots every time they have a meeting with you. I bet small business is so enthusiastic about that $7 billion tax cut for the big four banks. Even if that not enough, there are the income tax cuts to the bank CEOs. On his base salary, the tax cut for the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank will be $170,000. I bet he is unhappy with you! I bet he is terrified of this government. If you go off his full salary for last year, it would be a $246,000 tax cut.

So, they spent all this time defending the banks, backing the banks in, and then out of the blue comes this bank levy, put in the budget at the last moment, having been leaked to sky News—$14 billion was wiped off the share market; there was probably a bit of trading going on, with a few people making some dollars on information that had leaked out of the budget, but never mind that. They come in here, they beat their chests about the banks, but the truth is that this bank levy is pretty badly designed and the cost almost certainly will be passed on, from what the banks are saying—Ken Henry says it will be passed on, and Westpac says it will be passed on to shareholders, to customers, to staff. We know this is basically going to morph into a consumer levy. That is where it is going. That is where the banks are pushing it. Bank CEOs are openly thumbing their noses at you, and yet your response is to come into this House and say, 'Oh, don't worry, they won't be able to pass it on.' How can you say that? I defy any member opposite to tell me how they can prevent the banks from passing this on.

This whole meandering along the policy continuum from one end to the other indicates the last days of a Prime Minister who is floundering around. It is the last days of a backbench who, a bit like wombats, are going round and round in circles, not knowing what the government lines will be next week or the week after. As the Qantas CEO says, who knows who is next? So you had better buckle up for the Prime Minister's next great gambit to save his prime ministership. We all know you have a leader in waiting up the back. Here is the member for Goldstein! If Angus Taylor can give it a go, why not you? The reality of this government is that they are confused and they do not know what they believe in. (Time expired)

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