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Tax cuts for high-income earners defeated in Senate – politics live
Tax cuts for high-income earners defeated in Senate – politics live
(35 minutes later)
Bob Katter has the independent’s question and it is to Julie Bishop:
Josh Frydenberg is taking a dixer on the national energy guarantee, and he says Labor, but we all know he means Tony Abbott.
I refer to articles on the front page of the Australian newspaper on Thursday and Saturday centring on secret American Korean War army files concerning Bruce Gillan and the other 42 missing Australians.
Terri Butler to Malcolm Turnbull:
In 1953, the Italian government received from its ally the United States a secret communique issued in September 1953 acknowledging that nine Australian personnel have been alive and in prison in Korea, and does our government continue to prefer they had been killed in action?
“Can this arrogant and out-of-touch prime minister confirm he is dealing with One Nation so that a banker from Clayfield earning a million dollars gets a tax cut of over $7,000 a year, the bank gets a tax cut of $17bn but a bartender gets a tax cut of only $10 a week?”
Bishop:
Scott Morrison takes this one:
“The Australian government, and I am sure I speak on behalf of everyone in this house, shares the grief and the frustration of the families of the 43 Australian servicemen missing in action after the War of 1950 to 1953.
Just trust me on this one – the Coalition has the better plan, aspiration is good, we pay for the services all those people rely on, and also, bigger earners pay more tax.
“An official list of all missing in action was released in 1953, it was in fact published in the media of the day and I have a copy of an article from the Sydney Morning Herald in mid1953, which list of those missing in action under various categories, both Air Force and army. It lists them as either confirmed POWs, confirmed killed, confirmed wounded, or believed POWs, it believed killed, believed wounded.
I just can not with these answers any more.
In fact, flying Officer Gillan is listed on this as missing, believed POW. Successive Australian governments had sought to ascertain the status of all 43 missing in action, but at that time, the North Korean regime did not confirm their status. And I know successive Australian governments have continued to make inquiries.
Shorter Peter Dutton:
In fact, instigated exhaustive inquiries to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the department, to the defence Department, of the US and South Korean governments, and I responded to the relative of flying Officer Gillan, courtesy of your offers, in writing in October 2016 to confirm that no further information had been made available.
People smugglers love Labor, people smugglers want Labor to win the next election, Labor is bad. Also, Labor policy which is not actually policy yet, because it is just an idea at this stage, is totally Labor policy, even though our policy which is not policy, is totally not policy.
“The tragic truth is the only authority that would have more information, it could have more information, is the North Korean regime, and we have very limited diplomatic engagement with North Korea and that has been the case for some time. Nevertheless, our embassy in Seoul has continued to make representations to the North Korean government about our missing in action as recently as March of this year, the summit meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un and the declaration that was signed that specifically refers to the repatriations of the remains of POWs and missing in action does give us some hope that there will be a final resolution of the status of theAustralian defence servicemen.
Is everyone clear?
Our defence personnel remain in constant contact with our counterparts in the United States, and I personally raised this issue with the acting Ambassador of the United States during the course of this week.
Chris Bowen to Malcolm Turnbull:
Chris Bowen to Malcolm Turnbull:
Can the prime minister confirm that this government has previously told Australians to get ahead, to get richer parents? And just yesterday told a 60-year-old aged care worker to get a better job. Will [you] stop this snobbery? And why, prime minister, are you giving an investment banker a tax cut of $7,000 a year and an aged care worker and $10 a week tax cut. How arrogant and out of touch can this prime minister get?
Prime minister, what is the median personal income in Australia?
Turnbull:
Turnbull:
“Again, nothing better summed up the character of the modern Labor party than the dishonest question just asked by the honourable member.”
He takes it on notice.
Scott Morrison is saying things. We move on.
And then, qualifies:
Oh – and Tim Wilson was booted for interjecting.
“But it is certainly well below the average full-time weekly earnings, because many Australians are working part-time and are therefore on low earnings. Rather than make an attempt to pick a number, I will take that on notice and I will come back to the honourable member on it.”
Brian Mitchell to Malcolm Turnbull:
Michael McCormack is taking a dixer, which is the only inspiration I need to make myself another cup of tea. Maybe I’ll even throw in a mint slice. I’ve earned it. We all have.
Yesterday he told a 60-year-old aged care work in Burnie to get a better job. Is this sort of snobbery the reason this Prime Minister is giving a millionaire investment banker a tax cut of $7,000 and an aged care worker a tax cut of just $10 a week?
Tony Burke to Malcolm Turnbull:
What policy commitments have been ... given to One Nation in return for their two votes in the Senate today?
Turnbull:
Turnbull:
The member Lyons is no more truthful in his recounting of yesterday’s Question Time than his leader, and I am disappointed that he has shown that he is of the same character as the Leader of the Opposition. Here are the facts.
“I thank the honourable member for his question and I understand his interest in ensuring that the Bill that he voted for when it was last in the House of Representatives. [The Senate will send it here and we] will be voting to send it straight back. There is an opportunity for him to show a consistency, steadfast commitment to push aside the mystification of the members of Sydney and vote for the bill and ensure that Australians have a fairer tax system.”
“The Labor Party is patronising 60-year-old workers and is patronising people who work in the aged care sector, it is patronising them and it talks about millionaires getting $7,000 tax cuts. You know what? Under our tax plan, the honorable member will get a $7,000 tax cut.
Catherine King to Malcolm Turnbull:
“He will! He could always get it back. He could always give it back. The Minister for revenue has a receipt book at the ready.
“Can the prime minister confirm that he is dealing with One Nation so that an investment banker in a harbour side mansion earning $1m will get a tax cut of $7,000, but a nurse in Caboolture will get a tax cut of only $10 a week? Is this why this arrogant and out-of-touch prime minister is telling working Australians, who are doing it tough, to just get a better job?”
“The Labor Party has betrayed and abandoned the people, the aspiring workers that Labor was founded to defend. They have abandoned them. This is modern Labor, it is a disgrace, it is an embarrassment, if aspiration is a mystery to the modern Labor Party, I tell you what, it is not a mystery to millions of Australians who want to get ahead and know that only a strong economy will enable them to do that.”
Taking a break from the national biscuit war I have started on Twitter (it is the mint slice, don’t @ me) let’s head to the battle in the chamber.
Bill Shorten to Malcolm Turnbull:
“When 8,000 Telstra workers lost their job today, the minister for urban infrastructure shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘As a former telco executive, I can say these things do happen from time to time.’ Yesterday the prime minister told a 60-year-old age care worker in Burnie to get a better job. Doesn’t this reveal everything the prime minister stands for? Tax cuts for executives, cheap insults for Australian workers.”
Turnbull:
Turnbull:
“That question demonstrates everything you need to know about the leader of the opposition. He cannot tell the truth. He cannot tell the truth. It’s only 24-hour is, 24 hours and he is already misleading the house about what I said to the house.
“I was very pleased to meet today a leadership group from Ballarat. They were here, they come here every year. They are inspiring people. Great to see you. These young men and women came here as part of their leadership program to learn about the importance of leadership and values, and I can’t say how disappointed they would be to hear their federal member misrepresent what was said in this house, because they know very well that what leaders do is tell the truth, and what the honourable member did was not tell the truth and she knows that.
“And what about the slimy patronising insinuation he made about 60-year-old Australians? What about that? What about that? Apparently according to him, if you are 60 years of age, you have to stay in the same job forever, earn the same money forever. You can’t … Let’s say you are a 60-year-old registered nurse working in aged care. I’m sure there are many of that age in that industry. You can’t aspire to become a manager?
“The only party in this place that believes it knows better than workers, whatever their occupation and whatever their pay scale, is the Labor Party. We know that our job is to enable Australians to do their best. That’s our job. To dream their dreams and do all they can to realise, to aspire as they wish and work hard, to meet and reach those aspirations. The only people for whom aspiration is a mystery, the only people who want to keep 60-year-olds in their place and think they are too old to earn more money or get a promotion or do anything else are these smug young men and women on the Labor side.
You can’t aspire to earn more? What if you are a personal care attendant? If you are 60, you can’t aspire to train and become an enrolled or registered nurse?
“Let me tell you, Mr Speaker, I reckon the young leaders from Ballarat have got more integrity and more character than has been shown by their federal member today.”
What this tells you again is the smug, slimy insinuations that Labor party make about the aspirations of Australians, we believe in their aspirations. We know that every Australian is entitled to do everything they can to realise their dream, to aspire, to go to work, to train, to earn more money, to move from one job to another, one department to another.
(Sidenote: Tveeder keeps changing old to wild, making the sentence read that 60-year-olds are too wild to earn more money.)
It is their lives. They should be able to manage their lives as they wish. Our job, we believe, is the government’s role is to enable Australians to do their best. You have just heard from this slimy, insinuating, patronising leader of the opposition that he believes that 60-year-old workers should stay in their place.
(Sidenote two: The very argument the government is prosecuting, that Labor is taking it out of context and is being dishonest, is exactly the same argument they deploy, when they refer to the opposition as being “mystified” by aspiration. Would it be that difficult to get some consistency here please?)
“That is what you believe. You don’t believe 60 is the new 40. You believe 60 is frozen in time. That is very significant they refer to a 60-year-old because the insinuation there was that is it, you can’t do anything else, you can’t earn anything more.
A dixer to Julie Bishop has the government comparing Labor views to Venezuela – which she first raised during the weekend national council meeting, after a CFMEU official wrote to her “urging me to publicly applaud the recent corrupt election of this brutal regime in Venezuela”.
“Well, let me tell you. I have been 60 and I know. I am over 60 and 60-year-olds have got plenty of energy, plenty of ambition, and there is a lot of them and they are going to come after you at the next election.”
Sigh.
The problem with that argument, is in his very next dixer answer, he cherry picks the part of Tanya Plibersek’s answer yesterday, where she said she the aspiration debate “mystified” her – without going on to use any of the explanation.
Michelle Rowland to Malcolm Turnbull:
So, ugh.
Can this arrogant and out-of-touch prime minister confirm that under his tax scheme a telco executive from Sydney’s upper North Shore, earning $1m a year, gets a tax cut of over $7,000, but a shop assistant in western Sydney, selling phone plans, gets a tax cut of just $10 a week? Is this why the prime minister is telling working Australians who are doing it tough to just get a better job?
Malcolm Turnbull was stopped after his address to the Refugee Week Event and asked about Telstra:
Turnbull:
The loss of so many jobs is very, very tough, heartbreaking news for the Australians, the Australian workers at Telstra - eight thousand over the next three years - that have been affected.
“The tax relief depends on a person’s income and indeed, it would apply to a lawyer working for a large telco as well, it will. Indeed, they are well paid as well. Mr Speaker, Mr Speaker, what the honourable member is trying to argue is that the personal income tax reform is lacking in equity, and yet, and yet under our plan, not only ... will Australians pay no more than 32.5 cents on any dollar they earn over $41,000, until they get to $200,000, when the 45-cent tax rate comes in, at taxpayers earning over $200,000, if paid 35%, plus the Medicare levy, that they will constitute a larger share of the overall number of taxpayers and a substantially larger share of the total personal income tax receipts.
I’ve spoken with the chief executive about this last night. Telstra is putting in place a fund, as you know, to support the transition of the employees that leave Telstra onto new occupations and new opportunities.
“... This government encourages aspiration and incentive and enterprise, and that is the big difference. We are inspired by the aspiration of Australians, the Labor Party is mystified by it.”
But it’s a reminder of why it’s so important to have a strong economy. A strong economy where new jobs are being created all the time so that while one company reduces its workforce there are other businesses, new businesses and including in that telco sector which is a very dynamic one, that are creating new opportunities.
Bob Katter has the independents’ question and it is to Julie Bishop:
The most important thing is to maintain a strong economy and that is what our policies are doing and that is what our economic plan is doing. It is what our tax relief is doing at the corporate level and will continue to do and of course it is why our personal income tax reform is so important.
“I refer to articles on the front page of the Australian newspaper on Thursday and Saturday centring on secret American Korean War army files concerning Bruce Gillan and the other 42 missing Australians.
A strong economy ensures that people who lose a job in one business will be able to find a new job or start their own business. Andy Penn, as I said, has given me an undertaking that Telstra will be putting the $50 million he mentioned to work to ensure that transition is supported. But the greater security for the future of those employees comes from having a strong economy and the greatest threat to that is Bill Shorten and the Labor Party.
“In 1953, the Italian government received from its ally the United States a secret communique issued in September 1953 acknowledging that nine Australian personnel have been alive and in prison in Korea, and does our government continue to prefer they had been killed in action?”
We are well and truly in election mode.
Bishop:
Labor have taken Malcolm Turnbull’s words, and well – let him say what they’d like, himself.
“The Australian government, and I am sure I speak on behalf of everyone in this house, shares the grief and the frustration of the families of the 43 Australian servicemen missing in action after the War of 1950 to 1953.
You’ll find it here
“An official list of all missing in action was released in 1953, it was in fact published in the media of the day and I have a copy of an article from the Sydney Morning Herald in mid 1953, which lists those missing in action under various categories, both air force and army. It lists them as either confirmed POWs, confirmed killed, confirmed wounded, or believed POWs, it believed killed, believed wounded.
Given that whole sequence could have been confusing for folks watching on at home, let me snapshot where things are at now in the tax debate, and point forward to what is likely to come next.
“In fact, Flying Officer Gillan is listed on this as missing, believed POW. Successive Australian governments had sought to ascertain the status of all 43 missing in action, but at that time, the North Korean regime did not confirm their status. And I know successive Australian governments have continued to make inquiries.
If you’ve been following on with Amy you’ll know that stage three (the tax cuts for the highest income earners) has been stripped out of the bill.
“In fact, I instigated exhaustive inquiries by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to the defence department, of the US and South Korean governments, and I responded to the relative of Flying Officer Gillan, courtesy of your offers, in writing in October 2016 to confirm that no further information had been made available.
I suspect that is the only amendment to the bill that will carry during the Senate debate, because two of the critical crossbenchers, Stirling Griff and Rex Patrick, are about to switch camps.
“The tragic truth is the only authority that would have more information, it could have more information, is the North Korean regime, and we have very limited diplomatic engagement with North Korea and that has been the case for some time. Nevertheless, our embassy in Seoul has continued to make representations to the North Korean government about our missing in action as recently as March of this year, the summit meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un and the declaration that was signed that specifically refers to the repatriations of the remains of POWs and missing in action does give us some hope that there will be a final resolution of the status of theAustralian defence servicemen.
Stirling and Rex just voted with Labor and the Greens and Tim Storer to knock out stage three, but they support stage two of the tax cuts. So now, they will start voting in the government column. When there is another vote later on to knock out stage two, there won’t be the numbers.
Our defence personnel remain in constant contact with our counterparts in the United States, and I personally raised this issue with the acting ambassador of the United States during the course of this week.
So what’s my best guess about what happens next?
Stage three will be the only casualty. We then move on the decisive vote: that the income tax bill as amended be agreed to.
At that point, things get hard to follow, so bear with me.
Even though Labor and the Greens just voted to strip out stage three, and have trousered that tactical victory, if these blocs do what they say they will do, then they will vote AGAINST the bill at that point. Labor will vote no because they oppose stage two.
The Greens will vote no because they oppose the whole bill.
So the government will have to line up the bulk of the crossbench voting with them in order to get the package lifted out of the Senate and back in the hands of the House.
That looks most likely at this stage, given Pauline Hanson and her merry band (of one) just voted to keep stage three.
On current indications, we could get Senate uplift of the amended package tonight.
Once the package goes back to the House I suspect the House will decline to accept the amendments, then the game of chicken moves onto end game.
The bill will come back to the Senate and Patrick and Griff will have to decide whether they dislike stage three sufficiently to vote the lot down, or whether they pass it through.
Fun times.
Earlier today, Pauline Hanson attacked the Greens after Sarah Hanson-Young accused her of voting to give herself “a massive big tax cut”.
Hanson said she earned the same as Hanson-Young - and would not be getting any tax cut.
But she appears to have misunderstood how the progressive tax cut system worked, as Hanson-Young pointed out shortly after:
She either has no idea what on earth she is voting on, or she is lying to the Australian people and she is misleading the Senate,” she said.
“Let’s crunch the numbers, let’s find out exactly how much Senator Hanson is going to get from this tax cut - $11,815 worth of a tax cut. That is how much Senator Pauline Hanson has just pocketed for herself, that is what she has just voted for. She has just voted to feather her own nest.
“And she came in here and she lied to the Australian people. She lied to One Nation voters. She said she wasn’t getting a tax cut at all.
“What a fraud.”
Chris Bowen said Labor was still in discussions with Centre Alliance about how it will vote with stage two of the tax cuts, but thanked them for how they handled themselves so far, despite government “bullying”.
As for the other votes:
Tim Storer only supports stage one.
Centre Alliance support stage one and two.
So, on that presumption, Labor might not have the numbers to win any further debates.
But we wait and see, because this is the 45th parliament Senate and guessing what it will do next is like guessing when Beyoncé will drop new music. YOU NEVER KNOW.
