Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

and appropriately name what this bill is: a broken promise to the Australian people.

I'm reminded of a different pathway when you do change your mind on tax, and I offer this humbly. When you do change your mind on tax, there's always the option John Howard took when he changed his mind, which was to take the changed position to the Australian people and seek a mandate for that changed position. That's courage. It takes courage to do that. Of course, having done that—having stood by his decision and having taken it to the Australian people—he was rewarded by the Australian people with continued government. What a great comparison we have between the golden era of John Howard and, sadly, the leadership of today. Rather than take that changed position and seek a mandate, this Prime Minister has simply chosen to mislead the Australian people. He has misled the Australian people on over a hundred occasions. 'Yes, of course we'll keep stage 3,' he said, but when push came to shove he broke his promise. That is why it is so important to capture that today.

Of course, there could be another name. We could seek another name for the bill. Maybe it would be the 'Dunkley By-Election Emergency Bill'. Maybe that would be appropriate as well, seeing the timing of this and hearing the clear politicisation that we've heard from the government on this bill. How much legitimacy, how much integrity, can there be in making these changes when we hear the Prime Minister repeatedly challenge us to oppose them? If you really were standing by this, if you were seeking a mandate, how could you hold that position? This is clearly cheap politics and deserves to be renamed so that the Australian people can see what it is.

There's another great name we could have for this bill. It could be the 'My Word Is My Bond Bill'. I think that would be great, because everyone could get to remind themselves of the great promises made by this Prime Minister and that, when push came to shove, when the pressure came on, when it came time to actually stand by his commitments, he chose to break his promises to the Australian people.

I commend this fantastic change to the title. I think it's one of the clearest demonstrations we can make to the Australian people of exactly the character of the government, what their real position is when it comes to integrity, their intentions for how they're going to govern this nation and the continued broken promises we've seen. Maybe there will be more. Maybe I'll have another chance to rename a bill as it comes with the next set of broken promises, but for now I think this is the most substantial promise that the government made, and it deserves full consideration.

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