Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

This is a debate that we wanted to have during the course of question time so that the Australian public could see this tricky Prime Minister on full display. They pulled a stunt, as you saw, Mr Speaker, and they sought to delay it until we got passed the broadcasting hour. It's a very tricky move by a tricky government. We get that. But the trickiest move is that the Prime Minister has left the chamber and has refused to take part in this debate.

When this Prime Minister went into the last election he said to the Australian people that he wanted greater transparency, that he wanted a brighter parliament and that he would let the sunlight in. None of that has happened. This Prime Minister said to the Australian public, before the election, many things, and the Australian public put faith in him, thinking that, if he was elected, he would undertake what he had promised to do. The fact is that since then the complete opposite has taken place. Is it any wonder that many of the Australian people who have watched the debate over the course of the last almost 10 months have been amazed at the way this Prime Minister has danced away from every commitment that he gave?

When the Prime Minister went into the election, he looked the Australian public in the eye and said that they were working on a plan. The problem is it wasn't the plan the Australian public thought he was working on. They thought he was working on a plan to reduce power prices by $275, because he promised that on 97 occasions. They thought that this Prime Minister, when he was opposition leader, went to the campaign, giving a commitment to reduce their mortgage bill. But, of course, since then, mortgages have gone up on eight occasions, with many more, sadly, likely in the pipeline. They didn't think it was a plan of a hit list of some $150 billion worth of taxes, including, as the Treasurer pointed out the other day, on the family home capital gains tax.

The Treasurer must have commissioned that work when he came into office in May or June just after the election. That's the reality. It doesn't take five minutes to work up the level of detail that we saw last week. If you want to see the true Treasurer of this country, the true member for Rankin, look at his train wreck interview with David Koch on Sunrise and Karl Stefanovic on the Today show. That's when we got an insight into what he was really thinking. Is it the case that the Labor Party support a policy of taxes on people's homes? Would they see the abolition of different tax concessions, including negative gearing? Would they support that in a heartbeat if they thought that they could get away with it? They would do it in a heartbeat. So you saw a little light into the true Jim Chalmers on the Sunrise program, on the Today program. You saw the manufactured Treasurer when he was pushed back out by the Prime Minister to do media within an hour or so.

The reality is that, in this short time, I can't go through all the broken promises of this Prime Minister, but we do have a top 10: no changes to superannuation; franking credits won't be touched; a $275 cut to power prices every year; Australian families would be better off; cheaper mortgages; an increase in real wages; no increase in the tax burden; no industry-wide bargaining; cutting the cost of consultants in the public sector; wage rises for aged-care workers. If you look at what the Prime Minister, both as the opposition leader and now in office, has had to say in a number of interviews, you see that his words condemn his now actions. He said, for example, in this House: 'Let me tell you: you have to earn the trust of the Australian people. If you make a promise and a commitment, you do have to stick to it or you'll be punished."

In relation to superannuation, on ABC's Insiders, Mr Speers asked: 'What about superannuation? Will there be changes to the superannuation rules?' Mr Chalmers: 'Look, we've said about superannuation that we would maintain the system.' He goes on to say, 'Australians shouldn't expect major changes to superannuation if the government changes hands.' That's what the Australian people were led to believe. The Australian public knew that, under the Labor Party, tough times would be ahead—they didn't realise how tough. And it is getting tougher over the course of this calendar year. The Australian government, led by Mr Albanese, is making it harder for families.

What did the Australian Prime Minister say about these matters in a press conference in May of 2022? He was asked: 'Does Labor commit to the current super arrangements for self-funded retirees and other superannuants?' The Prime Minister: 'We've said we have no intention to make any super changes.' Now, that is tricky at best, because we know, as I pointed out before, that the now Treasurer was drawing up the hit list before they came into government in May of last year and commissioned the work from Treasury immediately. So he was either making that statement knowing about the work that the Treasurer was undertaking, or somehow the Treasurer was off on a frolic of his own. I don't think that is the case.

Neil Mitchell said to Anthony Albanese on 31 January 2022: 'Okay, superannuation—any changes?' It couldn't have been a clearer question. Mr Albanese: 'We've not planned for any changes on superannuation.' Tricky at best. You've had Stephen Jones, the Assistant Treasurer, out there talking about seeing people's money that they've worked hard for and put into a superannuation fund as a 'big honeypot'.

The difficulty here is that the Australian public heard their Prime Minister and they trusted this Prime Minister in the run-up to an election, and every day since, this Prime Minister has ducked and weaved the truth. This Prime Minister has never once repeated the 97-occasions-repeated promise to the Australian public that he would reduce power prices by $275. A 37-year-old today is making investment decisions on their retirement in 30 years time; they're taking financial advice today about the settings around superannuation. There will be projections on adequacy into their retirement. Do you think the Treasurer got that today in question time? Absolutely he did not.

So, when a prime minister and a treasurer of this country break trust with the Australian public, it's very hard to regain it. If it happens on one occasion, maybe the Australian public could cut some slack—if it were inadvertent, if the circumstances had changed. But, when you look at the weasel words used by the now Prime Minister and the Treasurer in the run-up to the election, you know it was constructed in such a way that it could be broken when they got into government.

So now we have the list of the top 10, with many more to come. Because what we know about Labor is that they always tax. They always spend. And, when they run out of money, they always come after yours. This Labor government is no different to any of its predecessors. We will hold this bad government to account, because this Prime Minister has broken every promise with the Australian public.

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