Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This week marks just 12 sitting days before the budget is brought down—just 12 sitting days. The government is in a shambles over tax, and that was amply demonstrated last week in the embarrassing Press Club address by the Treasurer, Mr Morrison. To this end, I saw a news headline last week which said 'Malcolm in a muddle'. Is it any wonder? Last week there was a universally bagged speech by the Treasurer which, at best, went down as a backdown on his rhetoric about the generous tax cuts he wanted to deliver, which, according to the Treasurer, would have enabled Australians to get on. But, of course, that was just a furphy, as any gains would have been swallowed up by their big fat new tax: their proposal for a massive hike in the GST.

And where is the government on GST? Who knows. On the day the Prime Minister ruled it out, Senator Cash ruled it in. Over the last couple of days we have had Mr Morrison ruling out changing super to enable low-income earners to opt out and, at the same time, the new Deputy Prime Minister ruling it in. One assumes the Deputy Prime Minister outranks the Treasurer. But wait—there's more. Two more government members have taken the proposal a step further by saying, 'Let's extend this exemption to include students.' That's right, students—and why? Well, they will need additional income to pay off their HECS debt, their $100,000 degrees, because that proposal is still on the table.

Back to Mr Morrison's National Press Club address: it should have been a bit of a hint and a promise of what was to be expected in the upcoming budget just 12 sitting days away, but instead it was once again a contradiction on the issue of bracket creep. We heard that Mr Morrison said that bracket creep was a job killer and a growth killer, and he confirmed that again at the National Press Club by saying it was something that should be a priority. However, his cigar-smoking mate, the Minister for Finance, Senator Cormann, contradicted him the very next day when he said that bracket creep is not there to the same extent as it might have been in the past. Let's not get to the real issues of the tax avoidance of some almost 600 companies in this country that those opposite have refused to do anything about. We saw their pathetic deal with the Greens last year, which did not go any way to looking at how we might really address companies paying their fair share of tax in this country. So the real issues are still there. The Turnbull government simply wants to attack those at the bottom end. It thinks Australians should pay more through a GST or through cutting back on pensions or through all the other sorts of measures we have seen in the two budgets which have failed it so far.

What about when the PM said he wanted to have a conversation with the Australian people about tax? That is pretty much all he said from the day that he took over from the other failed Prime Minister, Mr Abbott. My advice to the Prime Minister is that he really needs to start that conversation with his own government in their caucus room, as we see senior members of government, cabinet ministers, on a daily basis contradicting one another and indeed contradicting the Prime Minister.

Goodness knows what is going to be in the budget. It would seem that Mr Morrison has had to rip it up and start again because he was getting contradictory messages from all sorts of people—not backbenchers, but senior members of the government who want to be out there contradicting one another. It is shambolic and it is a disgrace. I have not heard it, but we know there is an internal conversation going on, and it is one of dissent within the Turnbull government about where to go on tax. That is what we have seen: shambolic government and empty promises among other things. There are 12 sitting days until the budget and we have seen no real hint of what is going on, apart from there will be announcements at some point into the future. It is shambolic and the Australian voters know that—they know it well and truly—the gloss is off.