Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

Only two weeks ago today, the Prime Minister performed a backflip worthy of the Kama Sutra. Two weeks and one day ago, he looked Australians in the eye and said, 'I have no plans to change the stage 3 tax cuts.' And then two weeks ago he changed his mind. This is despite the fact that he tells us that his word is his bond. Well, Australia found out on 25 January exactly what this Prime Minister's bond is worth, and that is exactly zero. The Prime Minister looked Australians in the eye and knowingly repeated mistruths, not once and not twice but over a hundred times since the last election.

He knowingly repeated those mistruths going into the election, but more importantly he knowingly repeated those mistruths after he had directed the Treasury to find a way to unwind the tax cuts that he had promised and that he had committed to delivering. At the cost-of-living committee on Monday we heard that the Prime Minister, via the Treasurer, actually instructed Treasury to undertake that work to revise the stage 3 tax cuts at the very same time as telling the public he had no intention of doing so. He didn't tell Treasury: 'My word is my bond, so please don't do this. Find another solution to the cost-of-living crisis that will not make me have to go back on a promise and that will not make me have to break a commitment—a commitment that I have made numerous times to the Australian people to convince them to vote for me.'

The Prime Minister was quite happy to work away at something that he had time and time again categorically ruled out doing. Indeed, he was happy to tell Australians, 'We are not reconsidering that position,' at the same time that he knew Treasury was working up those options. The Treasurer and the Prime Minister said 12 times after they had commissioned that work that they had not changed their position. These are the weasel words from this government. Perhaps the most charitable reading of this statement is that he wasn't at the time reconsidering his position because he'd already made up his mind. This is a man deeply comfortable with deceiving the Australian people, and this is a Labor government that is too weak to stand up to his captain's call to renege on that commitment, and that means they are all entirely complicit in the mistruth that has been told to the Australian public. He tried to tell Australians that they would be better off—at the same time, I might add, as banking, at the expense of the taxpayer, an additional $28 billion in bracket creep over the medium term.

This is clearly a political response from the government to a cost-of-living crisis that has been going on for nearly two years. It's obvious that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer are not serious about Australia's long-term economic prosperity. All they care about is the politics. This is not genuine tax reform, and long-term prosperity will suffer because of this. In the last two days, in a train-wreck interview on Monday night, the Treasurer confirmed that the government didn't want to wait until after the Dunkley by-election to announce the changes. What an amazing coincidence that is! And the Prime Minister just this morning was calling on the coalition to vote against his own bill. Tell me that this government is not playing politics with this. He cares about only the political wedge, the short-term tactics, and Australians can see through that politicking. The Prime Minister blatantly told a mistruth—through his teeth—to the Australian people, and now he's treating them like mugs.

The Albanese government spent all of last year distracted by a failed Voice referendum. Meanwhile, Australians are now thousands of dollars worse off, as a result of this government's economic mismanagement. Australians have seen their living standards collapse. Somebody on $100,000 a year has seen $8,000 of their disposable income disappear. And now he is buying their votes for $15 a week. But I'll tell you this: you can't buy integrity for $15 a week. People might pocket $15 a week and say 'thank you', but they'll never thank you for that lie.