Andrew Leigh

TAX PAPER DELAYED FOR MORE TURNBULL TALK

Joint Media Release with Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen 

Malcolm Turnbull loves the sound of himself talking about tax so much he has put off releasing the Government’s much-anticipated green paper until 2016.

The Government will now go into its third year in office without having even released its ideas on tax reform, let alone a real plan. 

This is acknowledgement from the Government that this term has been a wasteland when it comes to tax reform.

In an attempt to avoid acknowledging the delay, Treasurer ‘Sneaky’ Scott Morrison began slipping the new schedule into interviews today:

“There’s a budget next year, there’s a green paper we will be looking to release next year…”

- Scott Morrison, AM, 10 November 

When reports surfaced in September that the tax white paper process had been put on ice, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison leapt to deny this.

Yet it is now clear those reports were, in fact, correct as the Government seeks to put off making hard decisions about necessary tax reform.

Within the first half of this term of Parliament, Labor put forward fully-costed and carefully-considered plans on multinational tax and superannuation which together deliver $20 billion for Australia’s bottom line.

We did this from Opposition. With all the resources of Treasury at their disposal, this Government can’t even get their act together to release a green paper.  

Labor is up for a big conversation about tax. But windy speeches from Malcolm Turnbull promising all things to all people are not enough to move the debate forward.

TUESDAY, 10 NOVEMBER 2015