Mr HAMILTON (Groom) (10:15): At the request of the member for Hume, I move opposition amendment (1):
(1) Clause 1, page 1 (lines 5 and 6), omit “Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living Tax Cuts) Act 2024“, substitute “Treasury Laws Amendment (Broken Promise) Act 2024“.
This amendment would change the name of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living Tax Cuts) Bill to ‘the Treasury Laws Amendment (Broken Promise) Act’.
Government members interjecting—
Mr HAMILTON: I note the groans from those opposite. It gives me great pleasure to read an amendment raised by Mr Albanese, our Prime Minister, for the original stage 3 tax cuts amendment that went through. He moved that the short title of the bill be amended to read ‘Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Relief So Working Australians Keep More of Their Money but Not for a Really Long Time) Bill’. So this is in keeping with that spirit of renaming amendments around the stage 3 tax cuts. I think it’s very important that we maintain that, because, as we saw in the last election, Mr Speaker, integrity matters. It’s important that things have the appropriate name, as the Prime Minister was so keen to point out when he was on the opposition bench.
Opposition members interjecting—
Ms Rishworth: How wonderful!
Mr HAMILTON: I hear the interjections: ‘How embarrassing!’ How wonderful to move this, exactly the same as the Prime Minister, and then to hear the question: why would we do this? Well, I guess, if it’s good for the goose it is good for the gander.
I’m reminded of a quote from the Prime Minister, which is that he promised to change the way politics was done in this country. Of course, we haven’t seen that. What we’ve seen instead is a desire by this Prime Minister to break promises. This has been the best broken promise that we have seen from this Prime Minister so far, amongst a list of other broken promises. We can remember, of course, the promise to have cheaper mortgages. Well, that turned out to be a broken promise. We can remember the promise of a $275 reduction in electricity prices—another broken promise. And we saw my favourite promise, which was that groceries would be cheaper—another broken promise. How appropriate, then, to take the opportunity to provide that integrity to the Australian people—
Dr Chalmers interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! The Treasurer will cease interjecting.
Mr HAMILTON: and appropriately name what this bill is: a broken promise to the Australian people.
I’m reminded of a different pathway when you do change your mind on tax, and I offer this humbly. When you do change your mind on tax, there’s always the option John Howard took when he changed his mind, which was to take the changed position to the Australian people and seek a mandate for that changed position. That’s courage. It takes courage to do that. Of course, having done that—having stood by his decision and having taken it to the Australian people—he was rewarded by the Australian people with continued government. What a great comparison we have between the golden era of John Howard and, sadly, the leadership of today. Rather than take that changed position and seek a mandate, this Prime Minister has simply chosen to mislead the Australian people. He has misled the Australian people on over a hundred occasions. ‘Yes, of course we’ll keep stage 3,’ he said, but when push came to shove he broke his promise. That is why it is so important to capture that today.
Of course, there could be another name. We could seek another name for the bill. Maybe it would be the ‘Dunkley By-Election Emergency Bill’. Maybe that would be appropriate as well, seeing the timing of this and hearing the clear politicisation that we’ve heard from the government on this bill. How much legitimacy, how much integrity, can there be in making these changes when we hear the Prime Minister repeatedly challenge us to oppose them? If you really were standing by this, if you were seeking a mandate, how could you hold that position? This is clearly cheap politics and deserves to be renamed so that the Australian people can see what it is.
There’s another great name we could have for this bill. It could be the ‘My Word Is My Bond Bill’. I think that would be great, because everyone could get to remind themselves of the great promises made by this Prime Minister and that, when push came to shove, when the pressure came on, when it came time to actually stand by his commitments, he chose to break his promises to the Australian people. I commend this fantastic change to the title. I think it’s one of the clearest demonstrations we can make to the Australian people of exactly the character of the government, what their real position is when it comes to integrity, their intentions for how they’re going to govern this nation and the continued broken promises we’ve seen. Maybe there will be more. Maybe I’ll have another chance to rename a bill as it comes with the next set of broken promises, but for now I think this is the most substantial promise that the government made, and it deserves full consideration.
