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

If there is one thing that defines this government above all the other things it is this spectacular collision between their words and their deeds. For a Prime Minister who considers himself to be an intellectual giant, a man who considers himself to be a colossal genius, he really is a very, very slow learner. The Prime Minister of this country is yet to learn that when you say one thing and do another, it catches up on you. This Prime Minister is yet to learn that when you pretend to be all things to all people, eventually they figure you out. And most importantly of all and most consequentially of all for this Prime Minister, he is only just working out now that when you say something at that dispatch box, the good people of Hansard write it down.

The reason it is consequential for him right now is that he said there, on the other side of the desk, 24 hours ago in this House:

… increasing capital gains tax is no part of our thinking whatsoever.

He could not have been clearer when he said:

… increasing capital gains tax is no part of our thinking whatsoever.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, while the Prime Minister is saying they are not going to touch it, in his own office and in his own cabinet there is a secret plan to smash the superannuation balances of Australian working people. At the same time as he says they have no plan, they are working on that.

How do we know that there was a secret plan to smash superannuation balances by changing capital gains tax? His own office leaked on him. Whenever there is a leak out of this government and people say, 'Who do you reckon is leaking on the Prime Minister?' I think it is easier to think, 'Who isn't leaking on the Prime Minister?' Who is not leaking on this Prime Minister at the moment, even his own office?

This is a man who goes to the wall to protect people with seven investment properties like he has. This is a man who will fight to his dying breath to protect people with seven properties, but will never lift a finger for people trying to crack the housing market or people trying to save for their own retirement. This has real consequences for Australian working people. It is why Tom Garcia from the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees said, 'Reducing the CGT discount on super would hit the retirement savings of all fund members, undermine investor confidence in the compulsory system and distort investment markets.' These are the very real consequences of this secret plan, combined with what they have done to abolish the low-income super contribution, freeze the superannuation guarantee and this genius idea to let low-income workers opt out of the super system completely.

Today, we had the sad and pathetic spectacle of a Prime Minister who said that he would provide economic leadership to this country. The whole rationale for knocking out old mate over there in the corner was that he would provide economic leadership. Instead, all we have from this Prime Minister and all of his minions is waffle and weasel words. On the Hansard of this parliament, the official record, it could not have been clearer, 'We're not looking at capital gains tax.' And today when he was asked about it, he was offended. How dare we quote the Prime Minister's own words back to him! Is it any wonder, as the member for McMahon said, that Ross Gittins has said that the PM has resorted to the same cheap tactics as the man he replaced.

On that side of the House, it is an economic policy circus. The Treasurer, the Prime Minister and the member for Hume are the clowns. They have done the impossible. The member for Hume stood here before and did the impossible: he made Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott look like economic geniuses. When he stood up here, and when the Prime Minister stood up here before, he did the impossible: he made the Abbott-Hockey era look like the golden age of economic policymaking in this country, the glory days of economic policymaking in this country.

There is one thing the Prime Minister said with which we agree, to be fair. He said, 'When it comes to economic policy, we are not rushing in.' That is what he said about their economic policy. That is true. After 2½ years, we have more debt, more deficit, high spending, tax to GDP at historic levels, employment higher than during the GFC, more chaos and confusion, but nothing whatsoever that resembles an economic plan for the future of this country. What that says about this Prime Minister after 2½ years is that he is long on promise, high on expectations but, at the end of the day, his economic policy is zero. It is nothing; it is nada. Like everything else that the Prime Minister of this country wanted us to believe he believed in, his economic policy is just a mirage, like all the other things—the republic, marriage equality and climate change.

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