James Campbell: Albanese leadership odds shorten after tax bungle

BILL Shorten’s Friday press conference was the Opposition Leader at his worst. Whether the resultant rebellion is the beginning of a move to replace him won’t be clear until after July’s five by-elections, writes James Campbell.

IF the shadow cabinet was going to go to the trouble of humiliating Bill Shorten by overruling his captain’s pick on business tax cuts, it should have come up with something that gets Labor out of the woods on this issue.

The obvious thing to do, having concluded his pledge-on-the-fly to repeal tax cuts for businesses with turnovers between $10 million and $50 million had to go, was to bite the bullet and drop it completely.

But instead Labor is committed to legislating to keep the tax rate at 27.5 per cent.

Friday’s press release from National Party leader Michael McCormack summed it up perfectly: “Labor’s announcement confirms it will increase taxes for all small and medium businesses, with only the Liberals and Nationals committed to a 25 per cent company tax rate.”

BILL SHORTEN UNDER FIRE FOR TAX ROLLBACK PLEDGE

BILL SHORTEN TAX BUNGLE IGNITES LEADERSHIP TALK

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese? Picture: AAP

Whether or not the government has the political skills required to make something of this opportunity remains to be seen, of course.

His press conference announcing the decision was Shorten at this worst. The whole world could see he had just been given an almighty whack by his colleagues.

Peter Beattie would have taken the opportunity to apologise, and to say he would do better next time.

The best Shorten could offer was an acknowledgment his policy was “creating great uncertainty”.

He wouldn’t even accept this week’s announcement had been a captain’s pick — as all the world could see, given the shadow cabinet had just rewritten it for him.

Instead he tied to claim “our Expenditure Review Committee developed a position which I reflected on Tuesday — that was the collective position of our Expenditure Review Committee.”

Whether this rebellion is the beginning of a move to replace Shorten with Anthony Albanese won’t be clear until after the Super Saturday of by-elections on July 28.