Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to begin the discussion on this increase to passenger movement charge under the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment Bill 2024 with a quote from the 2017 shadow tourism minister:

The increase in the Passenger Movement Charge has real consequences tourism and will have jobs impacts in the tourism industry, which employs a million Australians, is Australia's largest service export and has been nominated as one of Australia's five super growth sectors …

Who do you think was the 2017 shadow tourism minister? Do you think it might have been the Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs? No! Do you think it might have been the Treasurer? Do you think it might have been the Minister for Defence? No, it was the Prime Minister! We've seen this type of behaviour from the Prime Minister before. He says a lot of things before elections and is very empathetic. 'I'm not going to do this,' and, 'We wouldn't do this and we wouldn't do that,' and then what does he do? He gets into power, and he does the complete opposite. What is remarkable is that he does so without even blushing or thinking, 'I might be seen as a bit of a hypocrite,' or, 'Someone might allude to me as being a bit like Pinocchio,' or anything like that. He quite shamelessly does it.

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does he bring up his earlier comments? Does he refer to them?

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No; we haven't heard the Prime Minister speak on this, but I'm sure when he does he will of course refer to his 2017 quote on the passenger movement charge.

What we are seeing once again from this government—and this is the serious part of this discussion—is their failure to manage their economy, and what that leads to is them having to increase taxes and charges across the board.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.