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

On a day when the government is already a total shambles over negative gearing, a day when the Treasurer of Australia, according to one of the commentators upstairs, is a guy who pulled the pin out of the grenade and threw the pin instead of the grenade, and a day when it is just total mayhem on that side of the House, now we have the extraordinary prospect that a member of the government has said that he does not support the government's bill. No wonder the relevant minister, the Assistant Treasurer, has not shown up to sum up her own bill. No wonder she has sent the member for Mitchell. The Assistant Treasurer of this country will not show her face in here to defend her own bill, knowing that she has put a bill before the parliament that is not supported by her own party. This is a very big part of the shambles, the chaos and the confusion that reign in economic policy on that side of House. We have this extraordinary situation where Labor has a view on the life insurance bill, and the Assistant Treasurer has a very different view to her own members of her own government when it comes to the life insurance bill.

When you look right through economic policy, at capital gains, negative gearing and superannuation—at all of the important components of a credible economic policy in this country—we can now add to a very long list the shambles that is occurring over there when it comes to life insurance policy and financial advice in this country. For the Assistant Treasurer not to have checked with her own colleagues that they support her bill is an extraordinary gaffe. This is a very big deal. We have a backbencher who has stood up and said, in this place, moments ago, that he does not support his own government's life insurance bill. On a day when there are all these other shambles, we cannot let it go unnoticed, in this parliament, that the government is hopelessly divided when it comes to economic policy.

We know that the member for Warringah is in the party room, shirt-fronting the Prime Minister when it comes to negative gearing, and savings versus taxes and all of this. We now know that the member for Forde wants to shirt-front the cabinet of this country when it comes to life insurance reforms. This is an extraordinary thing. It may be that the Assistant Treasurer, who is probably, right now, hiding in her office, does not want to enter this chamber, does not want to come in and explain this extraordinary shambles that she has presided over—in this case, life insurance. It may be that she is in there thinking about the shambles of negative gearing that the Treasurer is presiding over and the shambles that the Prime Minister is presiding over as the member for Warringah leaks sensitive information against him. It may be that the Assistant Treasurer of this country thinks, 'With all of this other stuff going on, all of these other huge problems in the government, maybe my problem won't get any attention.'

We need to mark on the parliamentary record what is happening, right now, in this place, as it relates to life insurance. We have an Assistant Treasurer who not only cannot get her story straight on this big scare campaign of the Prime Minister's on house prices—after days and days of the Prime Minister saying, 'This'll force house prices down', the hapless Assistant Treasurer went on Sunrise and said it will force prices up—she was forced into this humiliation. It was day after day after day of extraordinary humiliation; she cannot even get her story straight when it comes to house prices. And now, to add to a very long list of gaffes, this error-prone Assistant Treasurer has to deal with the fact that her backbench is in revolt over her bill. She cannot even come into this place and defend this shambles, this pile of humiliation that has accumulated around her, as she gets one thing after another wrong in this place and beyond.

In the absence of the Assistant Treasurer, my question to the assistant minister who, at least, showed up, is: what is your response to the fact that the member for Forde, a backbencher from the Liberal side of the parliament, does not support the government's legislation?

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