Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Assistant Treasurer. Will the Assistant Treasurer update the House on progress the government is making towards bringing certainty to Australia's tax and superannuation system to provide stability for Australian business? What challenges are there to this approach?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Fisher for his question and acknowledge the significant contribution he has made to policy in this chamber. After six years of chaos and dysfunction from those opposite, it was up to us to bring stability and certainty to our tax and superannuation system. We inherited 96 announced but unenacted tax and superannuation measures. We are not proceeding with 59 of those, and we are proceeding with 37 of those. We have also changed the thin capitalisation rules on taxation on some of our largest multinationals, and we have also saved $1.3 billion by changing the R&D tax concession on some of Australia's largest companies.

I am asked: am I aware of any challenges to this approach? I am certainly aware of three separate challenges from those opposite. Let me start with the first from the shadow Assistant Treasurer. In The Australian on 27 January, he let the cat out of the bag in an op-ed entitled 'In defence of the carbon and mining taxes', saying if they had not been repealed:

… the budget would be comfortably back in surplus in 2017-18.

Dream on! I am aware of a second one. I am aware from the shadow Treasurer who said in the Financial Review on 10 January:

The whole gamut of savings and revenue measures needs to be on the table.

I am aware of a third approach from the Leader of the Opposition, from that horror interview he did last Friday with John Faine—dare I say it, Friday the 13th. In between quoting Martin Luther King, the Leader of the Opposition was asked a firm question from John Faine:

You want to put taxes up?

He gave two-word answer: 'No. Well.' I did a bit of sleuth work. We went to the website of the Leader of the Opposition, and we dug up the transcript. Do you know what two words were missing? 'No. Well.' They not only doctored the books in government, they are now doctoring their transcripts in opposition. The Labor Party is lost. They are divided. They have no plans and no answers. Do not take my word for it. Listen to the Leader of the Opposition. On the 7.30 Report, the Leader of the Opposition—

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I refer to the well-established precedent about the use of the word 'doctoring' being unparliamentary.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the point of order, Madam Speaker, there is a very big difference between stating that the Labor Party doctored the books and doctoring transcripts and the quite unparliamentary suggestion of changes to the Hansard being doctored.

Honourable members interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There will be silence on both sides of the House. The Leader of the House makes a perfectly valid point.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was saying that Labor is lost, has no plan and no answers. Do not take my word for it. Take the Leader of the Opposition's word for it. On the 7.30 Report with Leigh Sales recently, he was asked to spell out Labor's direction. These were his words:

If you don't know where you're going, any road'll get you there.

This is what you get from Labor in the year of big ideas.