Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Michelle Grattan reports today that it was the Treasurer's idea to hold people with disability to ransom. She says:

… there had been some resistance from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to the timing of announcing it.

And, again:

… Morrison, for whatever reason, was insistent.

Did the Treasurer have the support of the Prime Minister and the Minister for Social Services in making his announcement, or has he just been thrown under the omnibus?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course I have that, which is a lot less than I could say for the shadow Treasurer opposite. Between him and his leader, it has become apparent over a long period of time that he has been dragged kicking and screaming to positions he now has to articulate that go against everything he has said in the past. This is a shadow Treasurer who said it was a Labor thing—a Labor thing—to cut company tax. And he thought it so much—

Ms Keay interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer will resume his seat. As I said, I am not going to keep warning people and having the same conversation. The member for Braddon has been warned. She knows she has been warned; she acknowledged it. She continues to interject. She will now leave the chamber. That should not be a surprise to her.

The member for Braddon then left the chamber.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He said it was a Labor thing to cut company tax. The problem is that it is only what they say they will do; it is not what they ever do do, and the shadow Treasurer himself has had to repudiate it. Those opposite know all about do-do when it comes to economic policy, because those opposite are the zombies of economic policy—the walking dead of economic policy who stagger around adopting a position that even the French socialist government thinks is too left wing. This is a shadow Treasurer who used to parade himself in boardrooms all around the country—apparently the voice of economic reason in the Labor Party—and now has sold out 100 per cent to the political opportunism and cynicism of the Leader of the Opposition. As his credibility strips away with each speech, with each question, with each intervention where he repudiates issues that he once held with great conviction and published, he has walked away.

It must be embarrassing for him to go around having to promote the political and economic policies of his leader, because he knows deep down that the policies that those opposite are pursuing when it comes to the budget are wrong, and they are costing future generations. He knows that, and it is about time that this shadow Treasurer actually stood up for good economic policy in their shadow cabinet. It is about time he stood up for the things he believed in, in his shadow cabinet, and took the Labor Party off this ridiculous rails run they have got to economic obscurity—a path that takes them down the track where they are saying there can be no energy security in this country, because they will not adopt the 'all of the above' options of this government when it comes to delivering energy affordability for Australians. This is the shadow Treasurer who knows better but is under the thumb of a weak and unprincipled Leader of the Opposition who will say anything and do anything. It is a shame that he has signed up to it.