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| Version 0 | Version 1 |
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| Malcolm Turnbull backs away from a GST increase – politics live | Malcolm Turnbull backs away from a GST increase – politics live |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| 9.44pm GMT | |
| 21:44 | |
| Over on Sky News, the assistant treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer is telling her host Kieran Gilbert that the government is currently kicking the tyres on all the options when it comes to tax reform. | |
| Has the prime minister gone to water, Gilbert wonders? | |
| O’Dwyer purses her lips ever so slightly. | |
| This isn’t a masculinity discussion. | |
| 9.40pm GMT | |
| 21:40 | |
| Right, now to business. The business community is Disappointed about this back track on the GST. We know this because the Business Council of Australia chief Jennifer Westacot has also penned a tut tutting column this morning in The Australian Financial Review. If you are not an AFR subscriber, let me summarise: clap clap, chop chop, come along Malcolm, come along Bill you wicked terrible man. How can you go to water so quickly? Because, well, reform – which could, possibly not entirely coincidentally, involve lowering business taxes. | |
| Jennifer Westacott: | |
| The tax debate cannot afford to be limited to a simplistic fixation with one tax. | |
| It has to be about how we organise the tax system to help grow the economy. This won’t be achieved by changing one or two taxes, but by changing the mix of taxes to create incentives that drive productive, growth generating behaviour. | |
| It must be about lowering the overall deadweight burden of taxation including the burden borne by families and by businesses so our economy grows faster. | |
| This involves the total tax package – income tax relief, reducing the tax burden on businesses and investment, how the states fund crucial services and how we compensate people for any changes we make, for example to the GST. | |
| 9.24pm GMT | |
| 21:24 | |
| I have to keep ignoring business for the moment because the South Australian premier Jay Weatherill is taking his turn on the wireless. Unlike the finance minister, Weatherill is not searching for a landing point, he’s executing a Monday morning performance take off. | |
| Politics Live readers will recall the South Australian premier has endured threats of foul deeds from his federal Labor colleagues in recent weeks for choosing to facilitate a national debate on a GST increase. Because, well, hospitals. Weatherill is facing an $80bn shortfall in health and education funding courtesy of a cut to state government grants in the Abbott government’s first budget. He needs the money, and he’s been trying to give the prime minister some political cover to lead a debate that could lead to an improvement in his fiscal fortunes. | |
| Given the prime minister’s decision to turn tail on national television yesterday, the South Australian premier has had happier Mondays. He’s penned a column for the Adelaide Advertiser which accuses the prime minister of being infantile. | |
| Jay Weatherill: | |
| Australians were promised a mature debate by the prime minister, but it now appears even he is not capable of having a debate that addresses both national revenue and expenditure together. Instead, we are back to the old Abbott model where the conversation about tax ignores the important debate about how revenue is spent. It’s infantile. We raise taxes to fund quality services — health and education being the most important. | |
| Weatherill has been repeating these messages on Radio National. The premier notes he’s relaxed about the prime minister apparently dumping the option of a GST increase, but he won’t be letting him ignore the impact of the $80bn cut to services. | |
| Weatherill also notes that it’s complete nonsense for Turnbull to argue that he doesn’t want to see an increase in the overall tax take when he is perfectly happy to see state governments increase their taxes to fund services. It’s a nonsense argument, he says. | |
| Updated | |
| at 9.36pm GMT | |
| 9.06pm GMT | 9.06pm GMT |
| 21:06 | 21:06 |
| I’ll get to the business reaction on the GST switcheroos shortly, but first, a brief breaking update from the “heads we win tails we win” school of opposition politics. | I’ll get to the business reaction on the GST switcheroos shortly, but first, a brief breaking update from the “heads we win tails we win” school of opposition politics. |
| Here’s Labor’s Doug Cameron, at the doors downstairs, having a crack (I gather) at the prime minister for not proceeding with a GST increase. This would be the same GST increase that Labor opposes. | Here’s Labor’s Doug Cameron, at the doors downstairs, having a crack (I gather) at the prime minister for not proceeding with a GST increase. This would be the same GST increase that Labor opposes. |
| Doug Cameron says Turnbull is the gov's "chief bed-wetter", for backing down on the GST #auspol pic.twitter.com/jpMLgm8PkJ | Doug Cameron says Turnbull is the gov's "chief bed-wetter", for backing down on the GST #auspol pic.twitter.com/jpMLgm8PkJ |
| 8.56pm GMT | 8.56pm GMT |
| 20:56 | 20:56 |
| Hello, good morning, here we all are again | Hello, good morning, here we all are again |
| Good morning blogans, bloganistas, and welcome to the festival of dangerous ideas and borderline defamations that is Politics Live. It is truly delightful to be back with you for 2016. | Good morning blogans, bloganistas, and welcome to the festival of dangerous ideas and borderline defamations that is Politics Live. It is truly delightful to be back with you for 2016. |
| Truly delightful to note too that despite the GST being fully on about a fortnight ago when the treasurer, Scott Morrison, gave his strongest suggestion yet that the goods and services tax hike was going to be on, (apart from on in health and education, where it would be off because that stuff was way complicated) – it is now off. | Truly delightful to note too that despite the GST being fully on about a fortnight ago when the treasurer, Scott Morrison, gave his strongest suggestion yet that the goods and services tax hike was going to be on, (apart from on in health and education, where it would be off because that stuff was way complicated) – it is now off. |
| Well more than likely off. | Well more than likely off. |
| Certainly not on. | Certainly not on. |
| Here’s Malcolm Turnbull, on the ABC’s Insiders program yesterday, on the subject of GST increases. | Here’s Malcolm Turnbull, on the ABC’s Insiders program yesterday, on the subject of GST increases. |
| I remain to be convinced or be persuaded that a tax mix switch of that kind would actually give us the economic benefit that you’d want in order to do such a big thing. | I remain to be convinced or be persuaded that a tax mix switch of that kind would actually give us the economic benefit that you’d want in order to do such a big thing. |
| Just in case that billboard-sized hint wasn’t quite big enough, the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, has been dispatched this morning in the direction of the wireless in order to tell Australians that the government’s tax reform package will be both growth-friendly and fair, and possibly will not contain a GST increase. | Just in case that billboard-sized hint wasn’t quite big enough, the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, has been dispatched this morning in the direction of the wireless in order to tell Australians that the government’s tax reform package will be both growth-friendly and fair, and possibly will not contain a GST increase. |
| Unless of course, it does. | Unless of course, it does. |
| Cormann told the ABC’s AM program, then a bunch of hovering journalists in the corridor, that the government had not yet taken any final decision on this or any other tax related matter. The government was continuing the conversation and continuing to assess the evidence. | Cormann told the ABC’s AM program, then a bunch of hovering journalists in the corridor, that the government had not yet taken any final decision on this or any other tax related matter. The government was continuing the conversation and continuing to assess the evidence. |
| In an observation that could easily take its place in a merry light opera by Gilbert and Sullivan, Cormann, the very model of a modern major general, then went on to diagnose the government’s collective headspace. | In an observation that could easily take its place in a merry light opera by Gilbert and Sullivan, Cormann, the very model of a modern major general, then went on to diagnose the government’s collective headspace. |
| Here is one man’s brave search for a landing point. | Here is one man’s brave search for a landing point. |
| Mathias Cormann: | Mathias Cormann: |
| Right now, like the prime minister, all of us that are considering these issues, we haven’t reached a final landing point, so all of us remain to be convinced because that is obviously if we were convinced we would have made a decision by now. | Right now, like the prime minister, all of us that are considering these issues, we haven’t reached a final landing point, so all of us remain to be convinced because that is obviously if we were convinced we would have made a decision by now. |
| So let’s open our collective proceedings this morning by noting a GST increase was more than likely on a couple of Sundays back, then more than likely off yesterday, then neither on nor off this morning. | So let’s open our collective proceedings this morning by noting a GST increase was more than likely on a couple of Sundays back, then more than likely off yesterday, then neither on nor off this morning. |
| My bet? Self evidently more off than on – but this is #auspol. Never leave the building. | My bet? Self evidently more off than on – but this is #auspol. Never leave the building. |
| Lots more on the go and I have all the cobwebs of summer to blast out of my head. I know you’ll help me with that which is why I’ve thrown open the comments thread for your business. | Lots more on the go and I have all the cobwebs of summer to blast out of my head. I know you’ll help me with that which is why I’ve thrown open the comments thread for your business. |
| You can also reach both me and the Marvellous Mikearoo on the twits, even though I read reliably that Twitter is now dead. Despite those grim suggestions, do drive your chevy to that levee. Go on, you know you want to. He’s @mpbowers and I’m @murpharoo | You can also reach both me and the Marvellous Mikearoo on the twits, even though I read reliably that Twitter is now dead. Despite those grim suggestions, do drive your chevy to that levee. Go on, you know you want to. He’s @mpbowers and I’m @murpharoo |
| Fasten your seat belt first though, because here comes Monday. | Fasten your seat belt first though, because here comes Monday. |
| Updated | Updated |
| at 9.05pm GMT | at 9.05pm GMT |