Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What is the point of the Turnbull government? What is the point of this government? They are a government without a plan. They are a government without an agenda. They do not even know from day-to-day what they are doing. Yesterday, the Prime Minister was in here ruling out any changes to capital gains tax. 'It's not in our thinking,' he said. And last night what happened? We found out they are considering changing capital gains tax. They have no idea with they are doing, no idea whatsoever. No wonder Ray Hadley is saying that the Treasurer is speaking gobbledygook. I think he is certainly speaking gobbledygook.

The people in my electorate of Griffith want to know what this government stands for. They want to know what is going to happen in the future. They want to know what the economic plan of this government is, but not even the Prime Minister can articulate this government's so-called economic plan.

Take negative gearing for example. We have been so clear that we want to see housing affordability in this country. We want to see changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax. We have said very clearly to those people with negative geared investments, including those people in my electorate, 'We're not going to touch your existing negative geared investments.' But what has the Prime Minister said about people with existing negative geared investments? Not a peep has there been from the Prime Minister. We have asked him repeatedly to rule out retrospectively touching the negative geared investments of people in this country and he has failed on every occasion to rule that out. We had Scott Ryan out saying, 'Maybe it's not fair if some people get to do it and others don't.' The Prime Minister should rule out touching the existing investments like Labor has done and should do something about an economic plan for this country.