Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

There is only so much incompetence that we can accept from this Prime Minister. I seek leave to move a motion of censure against the Prime Minister.

Leave not granted

I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Maribyrnong from moving the following motion forthwith—

That this House

(1) notes that:

(a) yesterday in question time the Prime Minister said: 'Increasing capital gains tax is no part of our thinking whatsoever';

(b) just hours later the Prime Minister's own office confirmed to media that not only had the government ruled out changes to capital gains tax, it was still actively considering changes;

(c) leaked coalition talking points from the Prime Minister's own office contradict the Prime Minister's statement in question time yesterday;

(d) therefore, by the admission of his own office, the Prime Minister has misled parliament and through it the Australian people;

(e) the Minister for Finance repeatedly refused to rule out changes to capital gains tax on ABC News 24 this morning as the Prime Minister had done in question time yesterday;

(f) the Prime Minister failed to act in accordance with clause 5.1 of his own statement of ministerial standards by refusing to attend the House to correct the record as soon as practicable.

(2) We censure the Prime Minister for:

(a) misleading the parliament and the Australian people about his changes to tax;

(b) saying one thing and then doing another; and

(c) leading a government that has no plan which can be trusted by Australians.

Either this Prime Minister is dishonest or he is incompetent—he cannot be both. The Prime Minister needs to rule out increasing capital gains tax on the superannuation accounts of millions of people. What is it about this Prime Minister that makes him so out of touch that he would defend to the last drop of Liberal blood reducing the 50 per cent capital gains discount to 25 per cent but when it comes to defending the capital gains tax discount of millions of Australians in their superannuation, he is out of town for that. We heard him today in parliament confirm that he thinks that superannuants who are getting a concessional payment of taxation do not deserve to have the 33 per cent capital gains tax discount.

Mr Turnbull interjecting—

The Prime Minister says he did not say it at all. This Prime Minister yesterday got up in parliament in regard to a question by the shadow Treasurer. The question was:

Does the Prime Minister rule out announcing any changes to capital gains tax?

It was referring to his previous answer—any change. What happens is the Prime Minister is so arrogant that he thinks that he can unsay words and make them miraculously disappear. But the problem for him is this: every journalist in the press gallery heard exactly what he said. Every newspaper in Australia showed that he was ruling out tackling capital gains tax. What did he do? He said: no, they are all wrong.

And then you have got the poor old hapless minister for resources. He is overseas but he never misses an opportunity to remind everyone he is there. He rings into Australia—that is fantastic—and says, 'It is Josh on the line; what is the question?' And the minister, when he was asked about when capital gains tax, said, 'Yes, the Prime Minister has ruled it out.' Then, of course, you have the poor old Minister for Finance. He drew the short straw. He gets to do a press conference with Mr Turnbull, and, when asked if the CGT was in or out or what is happening, the Minister for Finance looks around. Today he did another interview and was asked the question about CGT changes, and he does not back up his Prime Minister. It is not a good sign for this government when you have the Minister for Finance going one way, the Prime Minister going another way and the poor old Treasurer in witness protection. But it was a moment in parliamentary history of the Turnbull government.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister was up at the box, making tax policy in question time. His command of detail is so good that he does not need to check the detail. We saw the bewildered looks on the faces of the members behind him. To be fair to the Deputy Prime Minister, it is a standard look. But, in the case of the rest of his colleagues, they just heard the Prime Minister make a captain's call on taxation. I feel a little bit of pang of 'poor old member for Warringah.' He was undermined by Malcolm Turnbull for making captain's calls, but, as soon as Mr Turnbull is up there, there is a captain's call. We know what this leader of the government said. He said there would be no changes to capital gains tax whatsoever. So, today, we asked him to back up his words. There were really three options that the Prime Minister could have picked: tell the truth; tell us what is happening with capital gains tax; or he could have just said, 'Everyone else is wrong.' The standard Turnbullian response to anything is that everyone else is wrong. We are lucky to have an infallible Prime Minister in this country. We are very lucky to know that not only are we led by the smartest man in Australia, self-declared, but we are led by a man who, even when he gets it wrong, is still right. The rest of us mere mortals simply do not understand the extent of Wentworth genius.

But, of course, it is not just the Minister for Resources, the Minister for Finance and the collective media of Australia who got it wrong yesterday and misunderstood Mr Turnbull. There are the talking points. Some super tax reform patriot from the government had provided the talking points, and it is very clear in the talking points that the capital gains tax changes are on the table. This is what we have learned to expect from this Prime Minister. He says one thing and he does another. This is not the only issue where he has said one thing and done the other. Dare I mention the rest of his long litany of sell-outs when he became Prime Minister: marriage equality, the republic, climate change, captain's calls. He also says to us, as he says about everything, that he has been thinking carefully about capital gains tax today. We asked the Prime Minister a question in question time today. We asked, 'Which is the correct answer? Yesterday, when you said there was no thinking about capital gains tax whatsoever or, indeed, are you looking at going after the superannuation accounts of millions of Australians?' We were told that question is simply out of order. Well, it is not out of order. This fellow here has been giving us a lecture about protecting vested interests. When looking to reform capital gains tax and negative gearing, he thinks the Australian dream is the ability to negatively gear your seventh house.

Let me just say to the Prime Minister of this out-of-touch government: the great Australian dream is to be able to get your first house. Why is it that these bastions of privilege are so willing to fight to defend the capital gains tax 50 per cent discount and the ability to use taxpayer subsidies to subsidise your negatively geared seventh house, yet they do nothing about housing affordability? We listen to the lectures of this government about housing affordability, but the truth of the matter is that they do nothing. But, of course, when we go back to look at what has been happening with this mislead by the Prime Minister of Australia, we see it was not just the talking points, the Minister for Resources, the Minister for Finance and what the media heard. What we heard is that the Prime Minister's own office has been explaining to Australian journalists: 'They didn't hear it right' or 'We didn't quite mean that.' I have loved the Prime Minister's office over the last 2½ years. They were willing to brief against a lot of people in the last 2½ years, and many of you know that, but I have never seen them roll a grenade against their own boss before.

The Prime Minister has no plan. We know that. As for the Treasurer, we hear he has been demoted from attending the meetings. 'Thank goodness,' they say. Martin Parkinson and Senator Sinodinos are there to sort out Malcolm's tax promises, because they would not let the Treasurer of Australia anywhere near taxation. That will lead to a run on the dollar, I am sure. We heard 5½ months ago, during the debate about taxation, that there was going to be new economic leadership. I tell you what: there has not been much leadership, but there has been a lot of talk. Australia loves the waffle. We love hearing the talk and the spin, but we do not hear much substance. When will this government announce their tax plans? If you cannot trust them on the CGT, how can we trust them not to go back to the well on GST and the 15 per cent?

Today, you have just said that you are open to considering halving the capital gains tax discount on millions of superannuation accounts. I see the Prime Minister shaking his head, probably in some rueful frustration that we do not accept the inevitability of his logic. The truth of the matter is that the Prime Minister needs to have a tax plan which will last longer than five minutes. We need to have a plan for housing affordability and getting the budget repaired, but he says no to negative gearing changes. We will make sure our changes are not retrospective. They have not ruled out making them retrospective. We will make sure that negative gearing is still available for new housing so that people who want to negatively gear can. But what we will also do is take up the fight about tax reform, which will make sure that Australians find it easier to afford a house, it will be easier to help the budget repair and it will be easier to be able to fund health and education.

We also say on taxation and tax reform and why this Prime Minister has misled the House that he talks about multinationals, but he will not articulate how much they are going to raise from multinationals. We see poor old buggerlugs, the Treasurer of Australia, getting up and sounding like the worker's friend on multinational taxation. We hear no plan on taxation from them. This is a Prime Minister who says one thing and does another. (Time expired)

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