Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Payman, I'm sure you'd agree that it's crystal clear that every early childhood worker deserves a tax cut, but only Labor stands up for these workers, putting more in their pockets during a cost-of-living crisis. As I say, we've seen all sorts of statements from the Liberals and the Nationals over the last couple of weeks. Here are just a few of them. Over the last couple of weeks, we've seen coalition members of parliament describe Labor's tax cut for all Australians as 'an egregious error', 'a betrayal', 'treachery', 'trickery', 'absolutely shameful', 'class warfare', 'a war on aspiration', 'a war on hardworking Australians', 'a lifetime tax on aspiration' and 'Marxist economics'. Yet, despite hating it that much, they're now going to vote for it. In fact, Mr Dutton couldn't allow the sittings to go for even one minute before he was doing a press conference yesterday in a humiliating backdown saying that he was going to back it. We know it's not the first time that the Liberals have voted for an egregious error; they did put Scott Morrison into The Lodge. We know it's not the first time they've voted for betrayal, treachery and trickery Just have a look at Senator McGrath over there in Nemesis the other night—and now Marxist economics, as well.