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

It's important that the House realises what the government is doing with this amendment. The bill itself is a patch-up. The government is responding to an issue raised in September 2016 which they initially dismissed, an issue which has caused significant consternation among Australia's small business community. Now, as the government brings in its own patch-up, the minister at the table has just patched the patch-up. They are amending their own amending legislation.

How have we got to this point? It is because the government is so fixated on looking after millionaires and multinationals that they can't get the basics right. They can't ensure that a small business tax cut which enjoys bipartisan support is implemented clearly and in a straightforward manner. Small businesses have better things to do than to deal with the stumbling and bumbling of this government. Tax practitioners warned the government in September 2016, but it took the government a year to act. Then when they acted, they didn't get it right. It's so characteristic of this government—a government which has staggered from crisis to crisis, which has talked about raising the GST, which has talked about the 'excesses' in negative gearing and failed to do anything.

The minister at the table can't work out whether Labor's negative gearing policies will drive up house prices or drive down house prices. I was a little disappointed that, in the vote we had just now on the second reading amendment, we didn't get the minister's support, as indeed we'd received for a second reading amendment that I'd moved previously. A government that can't get the basics right on tax implementation is a government that is failing to deliver the economic leadership that we were promised. Don't forget, when Prime Minister Turnbull rolled then Prime Minister Abbott, his chief reason for so doing was the need for economic leadership. If you can't get the basics right, you're not providing economic leadership to the nation. If you are patching up your patch-up job, if you've mucked up your fix-up, then you're not able to command the credibility to which Australia's tax professionals and the small business community are entitled. Labor will support this bill, but we do so with a shake of our heads, as do the broader community, at a government unable to get the basics right.

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

See this speech in context