Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Sometimes it is good to go third in these debates so that you can hear the views of the opposition and the views of government senators. I thank Senator Moore for bringing this motion forward for consideration today. When Prime Minister Turnbull had rolled Mr Abbott out of the Prime Minister's office, his pitch to his own party room and to the people of Australia was really twofold. It was, 'We're doing very badly in the polls, and I will improve your standing in the news polls. Prime Minister Abbott cannot sell the economic message and that is something I will do.'

It is interesting, only a few short months later, to see how that is working out. The polls are not looking all that great, but—of much greater consequence—the government's economic message is just incoherent. With greatest respect to Senator Back, who I quite like personally, he did not shed a great deal of light on the government's economic message just then. Senator Bilyk, in her own way, has just put a proposition. We do not believe that the opposition's proposals on negative gearing go anywhere near far enough. I will explain why in a moment.

But it is, nonetheless, a recognition of the revenue that is available. Having bailed out and gone a bit weak at the knees at the idea of taxing every Australian on every purchase of every item through the GST—you have gone a bit cold on that idea—there are revenue measures available through things like negative gearing and, particularly, capital gains tax exemptions. For Senator Back, it appeared to have just gone completely over his head that that is what is on the table.

It is very interesting because I can recall through six years of the Rudd-Gillard governments that we could not get a peep out of the Labor Party on negative gearing. We could not find a pulse. We went after the Treasury department: 'No, we've not been asked to model it.' It was this extraordinary tight-lipped exchange at the time, where negative gearing was considered too politically dangerous to handle. Labor will say one thing in opposition and in government another, but credit where it is due: it is out in the open now and the debate is joint. They at least—