Party Games: Road to the July 2 Federal election has begun, and it’s paved with antics and rhetoric

OPINION: The scene – and the tone – for the next 56 days has been set, and it’s safe to say voters can expect a lot more of these antics in the lead-up to July 2’s Federal election.

YESTERDAY was the last day of the Parliament and just three days before Malcolm Turnbull interrupts Mothers’ Day by calling on Governor General Peter Cosgrove to officially start election campaign 2016 which meant we should all take any political rhetoric with a large shaker of salt.

This was good advice as the Coalition and Labor were throwing their own versions of a tatty old political attack.

Labor wanted to know what figuring the government used to cost its 10-year company tax reduction plan which is central to the whole jobs and growth caper.

Believing it to be a $50 billion total, Labor says it’s unaffordable but the government is having none of it, saying it’s an established tradition not to release 10-year costings.

“Let me be clear about this - the Opposition is entitled to ask what the 10-year cost of the enterprise tax cuts will be,” said the Prime Minister.

PM Malcolm Turnbull and Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen go toe to toe in the final day of Parliament before an election is called. Picture: Ray Strange

“They’re entitled to ask that, but as (Labor’s Chris Bowen) knows very well as a former Treasurer and a biographer of many treasurers, the practice has been for many years that detailed line items for all measures are set out for the forward estimates over a period of four years.”

Labor itself has used a 10-year framework to boast about the amount of money raised by its tobacco tax hike - which they wouldn’t give any detail for until the government revealed its own and forced the ALP to accept a much smaller estimation.

Also, when Labor was in government, Labor refused to give 10-year costings such as in March, 2012 then Finance Minister Penny Wong bluntly said the government “didn’t release 10-year costings”.

While neither Labor nor the Coalition were so blunt, the argument can be distilled to a simple name calling exercise with the former shouting “Joe Hockey’s unfair 2014 budget” and the latter responding with “Julia Gillard’s unfunded Gonski plan”.

This is going to set the scene - and the tone - for the next 56 days, sometimes louder and sometimes not so shouty.

Originally published as Party Games: Road to the July 2 Federal election has begun, and it’s paved with antics and rhetoric