Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. How will the Albanese Labor government's tax cuts provide cost of living relief for middle Australia, and what are the alternatives?

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks to the terrific member for Gilmore for her question. 64,000 taxpayers in Gilmore will get a tax cut. Eighty-seven per cent of them will get a bigger tax cut than before.

The last couple of weeks made two things really clear. From this Prime Minister, middle Australia gets a bigger tax cut; from that opposition leader, all they get is the usual slapstick negativity. Our tax cuts are all about providing more relief for more people to help with the cost of living. Every taxpayer gets a tax cut, and 84 per cent of them get a bigger tax cut. Ninety per cent of tax-paying women, 90 per cent of taxpayers under 35 and 90 per cent of taxpayers in the regions will all get a bigger tax cut.

Those opposite spent the best part of a couple of weeks lurching and searching for an excuse to dud those workers. They called for an election. They equated bigger tax cuts with Marxism. They said they'd fight us every step of the way. The Leader of the Opposition wanted to boycott Woolies and then he wanted to boycott middle Australia as well. But after all their posturing and all their politicking and puffing themselves up, up goes the little white flag. If they really believe the changes we're making are wrong, they'd vote against them and they'd roll them back—as the deputy leader said they would. Instead, to justify this humiliating capitulation, they say they're going to resurrect the old stage 3 tax cuts. The best they can come up with, in 2024, is to try and breathe life into the member for Cook's tax policy from five years ago.

There is a theme here. Last week, the shadow Treasurer accused me of having no plan to take this country back to what it was like during the Morrison government. I want to make it clear to the House that I took this as a compliment! When the rest of Australia watches the Nemesis documentary on the ABC, they see a cautionary tale. But when the member for Hume settles down in his pjs with a little hot chocky in an old 'back in black' mug to watch that documentary, he sees some kind of golden era.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Members on my right will cease interjecting immediately. I will hear from the Manager of Opposition Business.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On relevance, Speaker. The Treasurer is a serial offender and he's at it again. He ought to desist in the grubby personal attacks and stick to the question.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer will cease interjecting. I'll hear from the Leader of the House on the point of order.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the point of order, Speaker. In terms of language that's allowed to be used in answers to questions, the precedents are clear. I did a search of the previous government, and the word 'thug' was used 15 times in question time by one particular minister—who is now Leader of the Opposition. These comments are clearly in order.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Resume your seat!

Honourable members interjecting—

No, I'll deal with this matter. The Treasurer will resume his seat.

The Minister for Home Affairs has been continually interjecting during question time. She is warned. If she interjects one more time, she will not be here in the chamber.

The Treasurer was asked about alternatives, not alternative personalities or people. So I'm going to ask him to return to the question, and he can refer to alternative policies and not alternative personalities. He has the call.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The alternative on their watch was higher inflation in a quarterly sense. Wages were lower, and the waste and rorts were feeding huge deficits in the budget. The tax cuts were skewed to people already on the highest incomes. The point I'm making is that they haven't learned and they haven't changed. If anything, they're more divided and more divisive than they've ever been.

That's why I say to the people of Australia watching that documentary on the ABC: if you thought the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments in the Nemesis doco were bad, we now know from this tax debacle on that side of the House that the dregs of those governments are even worse.