Labor launched welcome-home barrage of questions on GST when PM wanted to talk national security

WHILE the PM discussed global terrorism with world leaders, the opposition focused on groceries bills and GST in the electorate. Then their two worlds collided.

Question Time

MALCOLM Turnbull seemed genuinely shocked today at what he was hearing through a jet lag haze on his return to Parliament.

It was a barrage of Labor questions about increases to the GST — none of which were Government policy.

“I don’t believe I’ve been away at all. Nothing has changed,” said Mr Turnbull who today ended his 11-day overseas trip.

It was a rude return to domestic politics after summits with the leaders of the most powerful heads of government on the globe.

Prime Minister Turnbull was responding to a question from opposition leader Bill Shorten about the indirect tax and the cost of building a house, while later questions went to the fate of rents and fruit and vegetable prices.

And he reacted as if he had just returned from one planet and Mr Shorten from another.

Mr Turnbull wanted to talk about ISIS and national security. Mr Shorten wanted to discuss the GST and household budgets.

“It is very touching and ... the honourable member’s rather feeble attempt to get a rise out of me will not get ratified, I’m afraid,” he told shadow treasurer Chris Bowen.

In play was a deliberate decision by Labor of strategy over short-term tactics.

The opposition saw more long-term benefit in exploiting doubts about tax changes than in highlighting what essentially is bipartisan national security policy.

It wants to emphasise the issue so strongly families preparing Christmas meals will wonder whether next year there will be a GST on the fresh food cramming their kitchens.

The differences made clear: the Prime Minister had returned from high level talks on global security; Labor MPs were back from electorates where constituents were asking about taxes.

“We believe if you expand the base, increase the rate, then it’s a regressive tax, it’s exactly what happens,” Labor front bencher and leader of Opposition parliamentary tactics Tony Burke told ABC television today.

“You look at the difference, if you bump it up to 15 per cent, make it across the board, then you do have a much bigger impact.

“People on the lowest 20 per cent of incomes pay something in the order of seven per cent more, people on the highest incomes, as a proportion of their income, pay about three per cent more.

“The impact unfairly hits people at the lower end.”

Mr Turnbull again in Parliament had to explain that while all options, including a GST change, were on the policy table, no specific decision had been made.

He told Parliament: “The object is to raise the revenue that the Government needs to perform its duties and pay for the service it undertakes but to do so in a way that better supports and incentivises Australian families to work, save and invest.

“The tax system is a very big lever that the federal Parliament has and it can be used better or worse, depending on its design to promote the type of jobs investment, economic activity that all of us support.

“So I thank the leader of the opposition for his not especially scary scare campaign. But I really would suggest to him with all due respect, that he should come up with a new one.”