Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister: Why won't this arrogant and out-of-touch Prime Minister support Labor's personal income plan that would give a childcare worker earning $50,000 a tax cut of $928 a year, almost double the amount they'll get from the government?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question. The honourable member is part of a team—a Labor team—that is going—

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And proud.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She said she's proud of it—proud of going after self-funded retirees' savings and proud of raiding the life's earnings of grandmothers and grandfathers. She's proud. She is so proud. She's proud of cutting the income of the lady in her 80s I was with in Queanbeyan recently by 28 per cent. That's what the Leader of the Opposition and his team—his proud team—want to do. They want to rip $5 billion a year out of the savings of older Australians. They want to do that so they can fund their reckless spending plans, and they want to pose now as cutting taxes. Well, Australians know the Labor Party, and they know their leader very well. They do. They know he can't be trusted. Think about this: I talked about how he's switched sides on company tax. What about the Fair Work legislation? In 2008 the Leader of the Opposition said—

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

The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business (House)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's on direct relevance, on your previous rulings about the policy topic having to be kept to. I think we're already way off.

Mr Pyne interjecting—

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

The Leader of the House is not helping. The question was, with an undesirable lead-in, about taxation. The Prime Minister has been talking about taxation. I'm going to hear from the Leader of the House on the point of order.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I don't want to make this an ongoing saga but, further to the rulings you've made previously in question time, the question began with epithets about the Prime Minister's character. That means that by asking such a question they open up a very wide gamut to which the Prime Minister is entitled to respond. It was not just a question about personal income taxes. It was also a question about the Prime Minister's character, and he is responding to that part of the question. If they don't want him to do so they shouldn't put those epithets in the question.

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

I think that is a reasonable point. The Prime Minister has the call.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. In 2008 the Leader of the Opposition, when a minister in the Labor governments, said the Fair Work Act would:

… create workplaces where our children will do better, not worse, than we used to and in which prosperity expands and embraces us all.

It was really touching actually, very touching.

But he doesn't say that anymore—oh no. Now, when he turns up to the controlling shareholders meeting—that is to say, meeting with the CFMEU—he describes these selfsame Fair Work laws as a cancer which need to be rewritten. So laws 'where our children will do better, not worse, in which prosperity expands and embraces us all'—a sort of nirvana, happiness for everybody—that was in 2008. Now, because he's answering to the call of his paymasters, he says those very same laws, written by a government in which he was a minister, are a cancer and must be abandoned. It is no wonder nobody believes the Leader of the Opposition.