Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That was pretty hopeless! I rise to support the MPI. Who could forget when the Prime Minister rolled the former Prime Minister, the member for Warringah, after the government had lost 30 Newspoll polls in a row? That was because the former Prime Minister was not successful in providing the economic leadership that our country needs. But I don't think we've seen anything like economic leadership from the Prime Minister since he rolled the former Prime Minister, Mr Abbott—no leadership at all. We keep seeing an absolute embarrassment of a national leader roll around every day. It just becomes more and more laughable.

But the economy of this country is not a joke. It's been two years since the Prime Minister rolled the former Prime Minister, and where is the government at now? There have been 17 lost polls. That's only 13 to go. The Prime Minister is on the home stretch, with 13 Newspoll polls to go. The way he's going today, he'll probably slip further. And he would deserve it because we have not seen any leadership on any issues at all from the Prime Minister. A bit of a newsflash: when you have to tell people you're a strong leader, you're not.

Where is the economic leadership that the Prime Minister promised us? All we've seen is blunder after blunder. I will give just one example. Who can remember the absolute shocker around the increases to the GST last year? First the government were increasing it to 15 per cent and then they weren't. Then they were again, and then they said they would not and would never change the GST rate—after all, it had never even been considered! I almost got whiplash from the speed at which they made those changes and the turnarounds on that issue. Then there was a statement by the Treasurer that Australia did not have a revenue problem and that everything was fine. Then he made a range of changes that this side of the House had suggested. It seems strange that, in the absence of a revenue problem, the government chose to increase revenue measures anyway.

If I talk about the Northern Territory, where my electorate is and where people are looking for economic leadership from the federal government, nothing is more telling and a better example of the incompetence of the coalition government, including the 'former Deputy Prime Minister', the 'former member for New England', than the backpacker tax. The Territory is still recovering from that absolute debacle, where there was government policy on the run and a smash-and-grab approach to the backpacker tax. It almost killed a mango season. For starters, no-one in the government could get their lines straight on how the backpacker tax would work. Then we had a government frozen by its inability to set a rate. First, we had 32.5 per cent. Then, after getting a bit of feedback from people that this was madness, they came up with 19 per cent—but, if you don't take 19 per cent, you'll get 32.5 per cent. And the government say that they support small businesses on that side of the House! Do you have any idea of how hard you made it for small businesses in the Northern Territory with that issue? Parliament didn't accept—

Ms Flint interjecting—

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