Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to follow so many colleagues who have made so many good points about the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan) Bill 2016, including just now the member for Mayo. But there are also the points that have been made on this side of the House by the member for Oxley and others as we oppose this big business tax cut, a $50 billion ram-raid on the budget. I am proud as well to support the amendments moved by the member for McMahon, who made the very sensible point that when the budget is in the condition it is in right now it is just madness to contemplate taking $50 billion off people and off the bottom line of the budget and hand it to the big multinationals and the big four banks. So I am proud of our position.

We are part of a bizarre spectacle where we are debating a bill about a tax cut that we do not know will even make it to the weekend. When you read the articles that have come from well-placed sources in the government, when you look at the fact that the Treasurer stood at the despatch box a couple of times yesterday, and many times in the media, and could not even back-in this tax, which he says is so important to give to big multinational corporations and big banks. He has refused to back that in in the last little while. So everyone in this place and everyone in the media, and people in the broader Australian community who follow this important national debate know that in the House right now we are debating a bill that the government is about to gut. When they do gut this bill, it will be a humiliation for the Treasurer. It will be the final humiliation for the Treasurer, who has made a habit of humiliating himself, whether it be from his connection with the bright idea of holding the NDIS hostage to vulnerable people, or holding child care hostage to making cuts to the payments to vulnerable people, this Treasurer is generally at the seam of the biggest debacles.

The best summary of this shambles we are debating right now really is the fact that for some time now this Treasurer, this Prime Minister, all the ministers and all of those opposite have been going around the country saying that this tax cut is absolutely essential to jobs and growth. It is their only policy for jobs and growth in this country. They have gone around for months and months saying that it is absolutely imperative that we have this, because without it there will be no jobs and growth. In the short time since the election this tax cut has gone from essential to expendable, and now we get all these weasel words from the Treasurer about whether or not this tax cut will survive at all. This was their one-point plan for jobs and growth and that one-point plan is now in tatters.

The problem for the Treasurer, and the reason he cannot come to the despatch box and say whether or not the tax cuts still exist, is that he is in the unenviable position of knowing that he cannot keep the tax cuts, but nor can he ditch the tax cuts. The reason is that he has been given the choice between keeping the tax cuts or keeping his credibility, and, in his usual way, he has found a way to smash both. He has found a way to abandon the tax cuts, while simultaneously abandoning his credibility—it is quite an effort. It seems that if the government cannot hang on to its signature policy there is very little reason to hang on to the Treasurer. Already, we are seeing that process beginning, with the Prime Minister putting it about that the Treasurer is not quite up to the task of selling the budget and he, the Prime Minister, will probably have to do it himself. There are all of the sneaky little leaks in the pages of our newspapers, with all the colleagues on that side of the House, including the Prime Minister himself, considering that the Treasurer is not up to the task, not just of selling the budget, but he could not even get his one-point plan for jobs and growth through the parliament.

It is important to understand that these tax cuts are likely hitting the fence not because the government has come to the realisation that they are unaffordable and unfair, which is the point that Labor has been making for some time and not because of some conversion or some realisation, or finally seeing common sense. These tax cuts are hitting the fence because they are so incompetent that their highest priority, their reason for being, the whole purpose of those opposite, and they cannot even convince the parliament and the Australian community, and not even sections of the business community, that these are a good idea.

We have never supported this bill. We have not at any stage supported a $50 billion ram-raid on the budget. This budget vandalism sees more than $7 billion go to just four of Australia's biggest banks. We do not support it and we are proud that position. We are proud to support tax cuts for genuinely small businesses, the businesses that do fuel our local communities, the businesses in my area and right around the country that do work so hard and deserve some tax relief. We have supported them from the beginning. But we have not support of a tax cut for the very biggest businesses.

The reason we have never supported this bill and these tax cuts is that they will smash the budget at a time when we have a deficit that has tripled between the first coalition budget, in 2014, and now, and we have a $133 billion blowout in net debt from the day the government came to office to now. It seems just common sense that Australia cannot afford a $50 billion tax cut for the biggest businesses, which is the point made in the amendment to this legislation moved by the member for McMahon.

With a fiscal record like that—a fiscal reform of tripling the deficit and big blow-outs in debt—it is no wonder that the ratings agencies are circling this government and warning that the AAA credit rating, which matters for mortgages out in our neighbourhoods and towns and matters for confidence in our economy, is at risk because of the gross incompetence of those opposite, because of the shambles they have made of the budget. In that context we should never give $50 billion away in such an unfair way and in a way that smashes the budget. That is before we even get to the point the member for Oxley made about the $4 billion in interest that Australians would pay when the government borrowed $50 billion to give to others.

I have said it before, and I will say it again—

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