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

Thank you, Senator Gallagher—two weeks is a long time, but I think we can rely on information from the backbench. That is where policies are going. Certainly, the Treasurer has said that investor tax concessions were being looked at very carefully. He said he would not do anything crazy. That is relief—I guess we would all think that was a good thing. So no crazy things, although I am not quite sure what his definition of crazy is, because their first budget after being elected was crazy. That, along with three-word slogans, brought down the Prime Minister.

But again, it is very confusing because apparently we brought down the Prime Minister because he was not really doing the job; yet when we look at the new Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, he seems to be just lining up with the old policies. I am not quite sure why we changed Prime Minister, because we have got a new Prime Minister who up until last week did not use three-word slogans but he tried that last week in the parliament and failed dismally. He tried to invoke his inner Mr Tony Abbott and it did not really work for him that well, even though he still supports all of those policies. I am not quite sure even where we are up to with the old three-word slogans.

Apparently, the Treasurer said that there were excessive excesses with the GST, and now today we have seen the Prime Minister and the Treasurer not being able to name any. Goodness me, this is shocking. This is tax policy led by the backbench and the media. There is no clear, coherent plan. Those in the know are now saying the only party that has got coherent policy out there around tax is Labor—of course, we have. But we have been our consulting; we have got good policy on the table. (Time expired)