Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House notes that:

(1) the Government took to the election a plan for tax relief for hard-working Australians which will more than double the low and middle income tax offset from 2018-19, and deliver long-term structural reform by lowering the 32 per cent tax rate to 30 per cent from 1 July 2024; and

(2) at the 2019 federal election the coalition was returned to office and that our plan for lower taxes was backed by the Australian people.

With just over 100,000 people making up the electorate of Bass, I'm pleased to state that over 40,400 people will benefit from the government's tax relief for 2018-19 and more than 16,300 will receive the full tax offset of $1,080. Those numbers are significant and important but at the heart of the numbers is people. I would like to talk about what this money means for the hardworking people of Bass and for their lives. Nick, who is a hotel employee in Launceston, will receive the full benefit. Marnie and Matt, nurses at the LGH, will both receive the full benefit of the cuts.

It is a common fact that our winters in northern Tasmania, while very beautiful, can be very cold, sometimes hitting minus two or three. This tax break allows my constituents to have a bit more money to cover their winter heating bill or to pay the local mechanic to service their car or fit some new tyres. It's a bit more money in the pockets of mums and dads for some of those extra costs that come with raising a family. As a mum of five I can assure you that these extras can seem endless. It's new sneakers or clothes that they always seem to be growing out of, some learn-to-swim lessons at the local pool, membership at the local footy or netball club or some extra fuel to drive them to training. It is a few more dollars for the first home owner who has saved hard to purchase their home but would now like to buy some extra paint or some plants for their garden or purchase an item or two from their local homewares small business to complete the look of their home. It might also mean the opportunity to enjoy a weekend getaway at one of Tasmania's fantastic tourism destinations.

This is much-needed tax relief that is welcomed by individuals and families in my electorate because it allows them to keep a little bit more of what they have worked so hard to earn and spend it in the local economy. Importantly it is also about the wider economy. It's about confidence. Time and time again during the election campaign I heard from people in Bass about the importance of confidence to their economic success. From builders and plumbers to retail outlets and tourism operators, every single small business person I spoke to talked about how responsive the economy of northern Tasmania is to confidence and, conversely, how quickly it can react to a lack of confidence. Many were holding their breath waiting on the outcome of the election before deciding on their future plans.

The plan for lower taxes that we took to the election was a critical part of delivering that confidence and it was backed by the people of northern Tasmania. Even in the last week I have spoken to constituents in northern Tasmania who now, because of the return to office of the Morrison Liberal government, have the confidence to move forward with development plans that will create more jobs and more opportunities for the people of Bass. We are seeing an incredible amount of development and investment in Launceston alone on the back of that confidence: multiple new hotel developments, inner city dwellings and the relocation of the University of Tasmania. I look forward to seeing that momentum continue in northern Tasmania, with more confidence, more jobs, more investment and more Tasmanians keeping more of what they have earned.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder for the motion?

Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion.

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm glad to speak to the motion, which I guess is a kind of trumpet-blowing exercise. It's the first motion brought by the member for Bass; I offer my congratulations on her election. If it were me, I wouldn't be drawing attention to the fact that the government only has one piece of economic policy, and they've already bungled it. On this side, we have been clear in saying that tax cuts focused on lower-income households are very welcome. We went to the election with larger tax cuts for lower- and middle- income households. We supported the government's less generous and less timely tax cuts because at least they had a similar focus and because they deliver at least some broader economic benefit. But if it were me, I wouldn't be drawing attention to legislating the stage 3 tax cuts, which, on any reasonable analysis, are unnecessary, ineffective as an economic measure and reckless, considering they don't start for five years.

It really shouldn't be the case that the economic debate in this place, or outside this place, gets so dumbed down that we can't get beyond a neolithic 'tax cuts are good' form of debate. What defines this country is the things we share. Our access to education and health care; our access to welfare support and aged care when we need it; our access to parks, libraries, roads and public transport; the protection we get from the Defence Force and our emergency services—all of these things we share irrespective of whether we happen to have a lot or not very much at all. What makes that possible? The taxes we contribute and the taxes that companies contribute. Let's recognise that any debate about tax or tax reform is not about less or more tax per se; it is about our shared social and economic wellbeing and how that is properly delivered and fairly paid for.

With stage 3, what those opposite have bestowed on the Australian community is a revenue time bomb with a five-year fuse. They have decided that it's okay to punch a $90 billion hole in our capacity to pay for the things we all share and the things we all need, with no benefit in terms of stimulus, and at a time when the economy is weak and fragile. They have punched a hole in the capacity of government to respond to economic shocks and to deliver critical services, especially in areas like health and aged care. The assumptions in their budget are based on rapid growth in net migration yet they've said—and the Prime Minister has promised—that they are going to reduce permanent migration by 120,000 over the next four years. Their budget assumes that the proportion of working-age people in the population as a whole will stay the same, when all the indicators show that ratio peaked in 2009, is falling and will continue to fall. That means lower growth and less revenue. It means rising costs in health and aged care. But you don't have to take my word for it; that's what the Parliamentary Budget Office said at the time of the last budget:

Over the next decade, the ageing population is projected to subtract 0.4 percentage points from the annual real growth in revenue and add 0.3 percentage points to the annual real growth in spending.

In real dollar terms, this equates to an annual cost to the budget of around $36 billion by 2028–29. This is larger than the projected cost of Medicare in that same year.

Yet those opposite have kissed goodbye to $90 billion over the next 10 years. They've all been sent through the internal mail the 'tax cuts are good' finger painting, and that's good enough for them.

Can I say, in relation to the part of the motion that refers to the plan for lower taxes, that Australians should watch this space. They should watch very carefully because, if you read the ideological tea leaves, you will notice that the Liberal Party's regressive economic agenda goes beyond income tax cuts. They want to flatten out income tax because it suits their aggressive agenda, but this government is full of people who like the idea of increasing the GST. I reckon that is going to be part 2 of the equation. In other countries, we've seen the same old two-step: a regressive drop in income tax followed by a regressive jump in consumption tax. Who gets hurt? Low-income households. If people want to talk about class warfare, that is class warfare.

The most important thing to note in this debate, when we put the trumpet-blowing and back-patting aside, is the enormous gap between self-congratulation and achievement. This is a third-term government. They've doubled the debt, they've presided over weakening growth and record underemployment, they've done nothing about stagnant real wages, they've supported cuts to penalty rates. At the same time, they've given us rising electricity costs and rising carbon emissions, they've chopped the Public Service and cut the ABC, and they've landed us with an NBN that is more or less obsolete on delivery. That is the record of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government, six years and counting.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This motion is important because it speaks to the heart of what this government is about. It's not about empowering the people in this room. It's not about empowering the people who are in Canberra. It's actually about empowering people, individuals, families and communities, as the foundation for this great nation.

It's a disappointment that the member for Fremantle is running out of the Federation Chamber, because there is nothing I would enjoy more than responding to his fine address—not least because he says that tax cuts are the only objective of this government. In fact, he criticised the outstanding member who moved this motion, and he suggested that it is the only substance of this government. Clearly the member for Fremantle did not sit through the Governor-General's address at the start of this parliament. It went for about 30 minutes. Don't get me wrong, Member for Fremantle: I love tax reform so much I could talk about it for half an hour. But I concede that that was not the only substantial point. The government has an extensive program focused on infrastructure, supporting people with mental health issues and doing all sorts of things—meeting the expectations of Australians with record funding in health, in education and for the sorts of support services Australians want their government to deliver.

But why can this government deliver it? The reason is simple. The reason we can deliver it is that we're running a strong budget framework, a budget surplus, which they love to neglect. One of their members referred to it as a vanity project. That is the nature and the objective of this Labor Party, this opposition. They see prudent, responsible budget management as a vanity project of the nation rather than the core of what we should have as part of our budget framework so we can deliver for the Australian people.

But we should not underestimate the power and the capacity of what these tax cuts can do. As the mover of the motion rightly adds, it goes to the core of what this government is about: the opportunity for people to be successful. It means that more money will sit in people's pockets. It means they'll be empowered, because it's not just dollars and cents; it's power in people's lives to make choices in the best interests of themselves, their families and their communities.

When the earlier speaker, the member for Fremantle, went on about how there's no stimulus, he must have missed the low- and middle-income tax offsets that were passed by this parliament, which, last I recall, he voted against. They only voted for it in the Senate, but they like to selectively forget that fact. You agree with it in principle, but, when it came down to it, which side of the chamber were you sitting on? We remember, and it wasn't the right side of chamber or the right side of history. What that money is going towards is stimulating the economy to make sure that people have more money in their pockets so they can support their local small businesses, support their communities and support growth, because we understand how critical this is to the success of our nation.

That is the one thing that has always plagued and plaqued the minds of our opponents: they see the success of the nation not through the success of Australians but through the success of themselves. That is one of the fundamental problems that sit at the heart of who they are and why the Australian people so resoundingly rejected them. While they stand here and now lecture us about how allegedly we're not bringing tax cuts along fast enough, they want the collective memory of the nation to forget the $387 billion of tax increases that they took to the election, which they said they thought was necessary for the success of the country and the foundation of the future success of Australians, to fund all the programs they would love to see—$387 billion. It is a scar on the legacy of an opposition that may once have felt that there was some sort of dignity in encouraging people and empowering individuals to live their lives. They were discarding the very legacy of the Hawke-Keating government that they so love to invoke when they seek to inspire their agenda. But they don't believe it. They talk it and they advocate it, but they don't live it. Their only agenda is to hit the hip pockets of Australians, because they think they know better.

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was very surprised that the member for Bass, who moved this motion, was so enthusiastic about it that she couldn't even talk for the whole five minutes! Maybe that's because, in the first sentence, she admitted that 60 per cent of her electorate will not be getting these tax cuts. And why would that be? It is because so many Tasmanians earn less than $40,000 and will not be getting $1,000 in their tax returns. It is because many Tasmanians rely on government support payments. Her government's minister said the pension was generous. There are plenty of Tasmanian pensioners who don't think the pension is generous, because they are battling to keep a roof over their head in terms of the housing crisis that has been created by the state and federal Liberal governments in Tasmania today. There are also a lot of Newstart recipients in the Bass electorate who will not get a tax cut to help stimulate the Tasmanian economy. Interestingly, the member for Bass said she thinks her government should consider raising the rate of Newstart. Perhaps she can tell the Prime Minister that that is her view and add her name to the list of people on her side of the House who think people on Newstart should receive some sort of increase.

The thing about these tax cuts is that a lot of low-income people who are earning a wage are not going to get $1,000. I have been talking to people in my electorate who have already submitted their tax returns, and I have found only one that got the full $1,000. This is because so many Tasmanians actually don't earn the national average income. Tasmanians are doing it tougher. We hear the member for Bass talk about how wonderful the Tasmanian economy is—and the Prime Minister says 'it's heading in the right direction'—but in the last 12 months Tasmania has lost 6,200 full-time jobs. That is a terrible thing. We have the highest unemployment in the country in Tasmania. I am saddened that the member for Bass, with her first private member's motion, can't talk for the full five minutes about the tax cuts that the government's introducing. She hasn't actually spoken about how Tasmanians are doing it tough, and she thinks these tax cuts are the only answer.

The government went to the election with really no more policy than tax cuts. There are a few local election commitments from the Liberal Party, mostly in northern Tasmania, but too Tasmanians are doing it tough. Too many Tasmanians are going doing it tough in the housing crisis. Too many Tasmanians can't find a job. Too many Tasmanians can't enrol at TAFE or at the university because of state and federal Liberal governments. Too many Tasmanians are sitting in ambulances ramped at hospitals because of the underfunding of the health system by state and federal Liberal governments.

We had to sit through the Minister for Health, in question time today, talking about how wonderful the federal Liberal government's investments in Tasmanian health are. They are not wonderful; they are clearly not working. If he wants to come down to Tasmania and tell Tasmanians that they are doing a great job on health, I don't think too many Tasmanians are going to believe it. The health system in Tasmania is in crisis. To have the member for Bass come in here, in her first motion, to talk about how great the government's tax cuts are I find really disappointing. And the people of Bass have a right to know that, in their member's first private member's motion, her biggest issue was to say: 'How great is the government! We've got some tax cuts.'

Many Tasmanians would have been better off under Labor's fairer tax cuts, they would have been better off if the tax cuts were brought forward, and they would have been better off under the investments Labor would have made. That is the truth of it. The member for Bass can sit there and shake her head, but this is true. Labor offered a better plan for Tasmanians and we care more about Tasmanians than the current government does. The member for Bass comes in here and all she can talk about—for 3.5 minutes when she is supposed to deliver a five-minute speech—is how great the tax cuts are. She couldn't even talk for the whole five minutes. That is the member's first private member's contribution. I say to the member for Bass that she needs to get out of her office, get out of Canberra, and talk to the people in the street about how many Tasmanians are doing it tough. Far too many Tasmanians will miss out on theses tax cuts. She needs to be advocating for them in the federal parliament. She needs to be standing up and telling her government, 'We need to do more for those Tasmanians who are doing it tough on the pension, more for those Tasmanians who are living in housing crisis, more for those Tasmanians on Newstart and more for those Tasmanians who are working very hard but earn less than $40,000.' Too many Tasmanians are missing out today under this government.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a shame when we come into this place and a person's value or contribution is judged by the amount of time that they spend on their feet talking. Last time I checked, people should be judged on what they say, not on how long they take to say it—but there you go.

Labor is in absolute denial about what happened on 18 May. In relation to the tax policy that Labor took to the last election: Labor took to the last election a breathtakingly ambitious—some would even say courageous—taxation policy, which included things—

An honourable member: That's generous!

I'm a generous kind of guy! It included things such as the abolition of negative gearing, the abolition of the franking dividend credits and the halving of capital gains tax discounts.

Lots of people in this place would know that I'm a builder by trade. The Sunshine Coast has a very strong building industry—you can take the boy out of the Sunshine Coast but you can't take the chippy out of the boy!—and the Sunshine Coast relies very heavily upon the strength of the building industry. One of the most popular things that I saw and experienced during the election campaign was builders and, in fact, anybody dressed in lycra—the sort of people you would normally think might once have voted for Labor—coming up to me in absolute desperation. I had one bloke actually grab me by the shirt, shake me and say: 'You expletives have got to win this election. If you don't, I'm out of a job.' Places like the Sunshine Coast that rely so very heavily upon building and construction were facing an absolute economic Armageddon if that lot, Labor, won the election—$387 billion worth of extra taxes. Builders knew that it would have been their death knell, and they spoke in volumes. That's the difference between us and Labor. We took a policy to the last election that would see very significant tax cuts. They took a policy of increases.

But now the Labor Party wants to rewrite history. In the previous sitting week—I had to check that I was hearing correctly—those opposite were trying to argue that our tax cuts weren't good enough whereas, during the election, they wanted to sting the Australian people with an additional $387 billion in taxes. I thought: 'No, no, no, this can't be right. What I'm hearing can't be right.' How could a party that was pushing $387 billion worth of additional taxes come in, in the first sitting week after the election, and say, 'You're not doing enough'? That, I believe, sums up the Labor Party. It sums up what they believe in. What they believe in will shift and chip and chop and change to whatever they think is going to get them good headlines and, perhaps one day, help them form government. They are without principle. They are without decent policies.

The Australian people spoke in volumes. Hardworking people from the building industry—in particular, anybody dressed in hi-vis—made it very clear to me in my three weeks on pre-poll that they would do anything other than vote for the Labor Party, because of the risk that it was to the national economy. Australians aren't mugs. They'll back a good government every day of the week, and that's what they did on 18 May.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's actually quite amusing to hear members from the Sunshine Coast refer to the Sunshine Coast as if it's the whole of Australia. Are we still surprised at all that the Sunshine Coast votes Liberal National Party? They have for a very long time. We're talking about some of the safest seats in the country. Let's just remind all of those in this place that the government only won by one seat—77 seats. That is not a massive mandate. They do not have a mandate in the Bendigo electorate on these tax cuts. They do not have a mandate in a lot of seats when it comes to the tax cuts.

Let's also just remind people about the broken promise. If you want to talk about headlines, there have been some headlines about these tax cuts that were pretty damning of the Prime Minister: 'Magician Scott Morrison's smoke and mirrors act on tax cuts'. He admits that he knew before the election he couldn't actually get them passed by 1 July. But let's just recall what he said before the election, after the budget, and during the election: that the $1,080 tax cuts could be paid administratively by the tax office even before the legislation had passed, an option the Morrison government later admitted wasn't possible. It is a broken promise. It's hard to believe that this government has got away with breaking a promise on these tax cuts. They told the Australian people in their election campaign it would be done before 1 July, yet they didn't recall parliament. It was practically impossible with how the writs were going to be issued, yet before the election the Prime Minister misled the Australian people on multiple occasions. The candidates misled the Australian people on multiple occasions. Their MPs misled the Australian people on multiple occasions. It couldn't be done. We offered to bring back parliament early so it could be done, but they denied it—broken promise No. 1.

Let's talk about the three stages of these tax cuts and who will really benefit. As the member for Franklin said, there are lots of people earning less than $40,000 who are shocked that they're not going to get the full benefit of $1,080. In my electorate, they did a little vox pop on WIN News and went around and asked, and all these young people said, 'Great.' They were looking forward to their $1000. Only after WIN said, 'How much do you earn a year?' and they responded, 'Oh, about $30,000 or $35,000,' did they hear, 'You're not going to get the full thousand dollars.' This government has misled people on who will benefit from this. There are lots of people, not just in Tasmania but all over regional Australia, who will not benefit the most from this package that has been passed.

That's where I get to stage 3. Stage 3 predominantly supports the very wealthy in this country. They are not people living in rural and regional Australia. In my own electorate of Bendigo, which is like a lot of regional electorates, average income is about $50,000. It is slightly higher than some of our other electorates, like Nicholls to the north. But in my electorate roughly 1.3 per cent of people earned over $180,000 in the tax year 2015-16. That is not a lot of people. About 1000 people will benefit from stage 3. Let's really take that in for a moment. Stage 3 of the tax plan that was passed will benefit really high-income earners who live in metro areas or are in some specific industries. It will not flow through to the rest of the taxpayers in our country. The smoke and mirrors campaign of this government and this Prime Minister continues.

Then the question is: how will they pay for stage 3? None of the government speakers spoke about what they're going to cut from the federal budget to pay for stage 3, which will cost the budget $95 billion by the end of the 2020s, or almost $20 billion a year. That's roughly twice what we spend on Newstart. Are we going to kick everyone off Newstart? Is that what the government's proposing? It's also twice what we spend on child care. Are the government proposing to slash all subsidies when it comes to child care? To this day they're boasting about stage 3 and what they're delivering, but what they haven't outlined is what they're going to cut from the budget to pay for it. Are they going to cut funding to aged care? Are they going to cut funding to the pension? To withdraw that amount of money from the budget, the government has to come clean on who they're going to cut, with less boasting and more honesty.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to start by congratulating the member for Bass for her emphatic victory at the federal election—a 5.8 per cent swing in northern Tasmania. I think that beats just about everyone else. Of course, our friends in Queensland did such a wonderful job. But they did have the help of Bob Brown—they must admit that! Bob went to Queensland. He left Tasmania. Maybe he should have stayed in Tassie. But what a tremendous victory for the member for Bass.

I would also like to congratulate her on her first motion. She understands the importance of tax cuts. It was a clear choice at the last election. The people of Bass had to decide on Labor's policy of $387 billion of initial taxes. They rejected it, and Labor lost that seat to the coalition in a landslide. Why? The simple reason, I'll argue, is that the Labor Party simply didn't understand that the policies of the coalition were merely allowing people to keep more of their own money. This is the great divide that we see in the House. We have seen in this debate that they've learnt nothing—three election losses in a row and they still have not learnt. Tax cuts are simply allowing people to keep more of their money that they own.

We know that on the Labor side they don't see it as money that people own. They see it as their money. We saw that during the election campaign. We saw that with the retirees tax and the theft of franking credits that was planned by the Labor Party. Labor didn't understand that that money was earned by the company and earned by the shareholders of that company. They saw it as a gift. They went around insulting self-funded retirees, telling them that this was a gift from government. I remember Senator Keneally gave some speech and said, 'It's our money!' It's not their money. It belongs to the shareholders of those businesses that earned that money.

We saw the same thing with Labor's negative gearing policy. They simply didn't understand that negative gearing is not some great lurk. It is a simple principle that your interest is an expense of the income that you earn and should rightfully be deducted when you calculate your tax. And we saw it on their attack on family trusts, where they wanted distributions from those trusts to be taxed at 30 per cent—not understanding how many small family businesses work and the legitimate reason that their funds are set up in trusts.

So this is the first step of this coalition government. It is to allow the citizens of this country to put more of the money that they earn into their pockets and to decide what they will spend it on. It's not just that. It's also creating the incentive for them to go out and earn more and create more wealth for this nation. When these tax cuts finally come through, 94 per cent of Australians will have a top marginal tax rate of 30 per cent. That means when they want to work a bit of extra overtime, or if they are a small business that wants to expand or take a risk, they know that if they earn a few extra dollars they can keep 70 per cent of it for themselves. Yet we saw under Labor's policies that the taxman would take half of it. It's not only the stimulus effect of allowing people to have more of their money. The true stimulatory effect is the incentive it creates for people to get out there and work and earn more money.

The public have spoken. They have rejected Labor's $387 billion of taxes. I would hope that, during this term of parliament, Labor could forget the idea that it is their money and understand that the taxes earned by the people of Australia firstly belongs to them. If they can understand that, maybe we may see the Labor Party be more competitive at the next election.

Again, I congratulate the member for Bass on her emphatic victory and for bringing this important motion to the House.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is now two weeks since both sides of this house voted for the tax changes referred to in this motion. To the extent that the tax cuts will benefit low- and middle-income earners, they have always been enthusiastically supported by Labor. It was a Labor government that enacted the last round of tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners back in 2013. By contrast, the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments have lived off the proceeds of fiscal drag and bracket creep for the last six years. And it was not that long ago that the then Treasurer, the member for Cook, was proposing to raise the Medicare levy on all Australians taxpayers, rich and poor. That idea only died when Labor refused to support the higher levy being extended to persons on incomes less than $87,000.

The member for Bass also seems to have forgotten that Labor went to the 2019 election supporting larger income tax relief for low- and middle-income earners than the coalition. The member suggests that lowering the 32.5 per cent tax rate to 30 per cent represents structural reform to the taxation scales. Of itself, of course, it doesn't. The structural changes, whether you regard them as welcome or unwelcome, incentivising or merely regressive, lie elsewhere in the tax package. The post 1 July 2024 changes to the tax scales impose a major and possibly unsustainable stricture on the federal budget. They reduce the tax burden on better-off Australians but they don't eliminate bracket creep or fiscal drag for those earning around average weekly earnings or below. To secure the latter, you need to automatically index all and not just some of the income tax scales. Any effect on employment, business activity and economic confidence of the third round of cuts is absolutely problematic and what the Prime Minister might call 'an act of faith'. To suggest that some of those cuts might have been retargeted or brought forward is unremarkable, nor does it call into question the election outcome or defy the will of the people. It's merely prudent.

Perceptions of the economy have changed rapidly since the election. Economic challenges, both short and longer term, are clearly mounting. On the government's estimates, expenditure on aged care, medical services and benefits and income support for seniors has been growing in excess of anticipated revenues from taxation—and that's just to provide levels of service that most regard as barely adequate, particularly in our health system with lengthening waiting lists and longer wait times in emergency departments around the country. The government say that those future demands on the budget won't be prejudiced by their post 2024 tax changes. That is their call—and a big gamble. Only time will tell.

Otherwise, the member for Bass's motion is not much more than a modest exercise in triumphalism, and I can see why. It was a significant election win against what was the prevailing view and was certainly against the polls. But I would like to see a little bit more humility and a little bit less strutting from many on the other side. The motion implies that the government was returned to office on a wave of enthusiasm for tax cuts that don't come into effect for another five years. Really? Is that not drawing the longest of long bows? Well over half the electorate voted for parties and candidates who did not support or fully endorse this government's taxation plan. If you believe the polling—and I say this with some hesitancy—the majority of Australians still generally prefer better government services to tax cuts.

So what of the government's mandate? 'Convincing' would not be the first world that could come to my mind in describing the coalition's election win. It is only one or two unfavourable by-elections or defections away from minority government. The government commands a bare majority in this place and it is in minority in the Senate. It secured only four out of 10 primary votes cast. The May 2019 election result makes it three out of four marginal wins.

In a populist age, public trust might be likened to a door hanging from a single hinge, and I suspect that is what this government is doing. The people's confidence, more than ever, has to be earned and has to be retained issue by issue. Long gone are the days when electoral promissory notes were written with a three-year term or open expiry date. We don't have the tradition of the UK, and it's arguable that our constitutional architecture, with a strong, elected upper house, is unsuited to a gentleman's agreement of, 'Let's just go along with the flow the government wants.' John Howard reportedly described the mandate theory of election victories as an absolute phoney— (Time expired)

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.