Accordingly, the Coalition’s star performer for many years and particularly in the 2016 election campaign, Julie Bishop, should be appointed Treasurer. She will have the strength to avoid being snowed by Treasury and the marketing ability to sell her policies to the nation and to the Senate.
Scott Morrison should have been a great Treasurer as he performed brilliantly in his previous portfolio but, according to Victorian Liberal party President Michael Kroger, dithering over tax reform was a key reason for the poor Coalition election result.
That dithering included flirting with increasing the GST, curbing negative gearing and giving the states income tax powers. None of these ideas came to anything and were dubbed “thought bubbles” by the Opposition.
Accordingly, the government lost the high ground in economic management.
While the Prime Minister contributed to the dithering, the Treasurer was the main culprit because he could not help thinking aloud.
In addition, his budget destroyed many Liberal supporters’ faith in the government by breaking a solemn promise in the 2013 election campaign to not fundamentally change superannuation.
Worse still, many of the changes were retrospective and, to make it even worse, the Treasurer kept saying they were not retrospective when they clearly were. The government argued that breaking the 2013 promise and telling fibs about retrospectively would not hurt them in the polls because the people affected would never vote labour. But that was a massive miscalculation.
The overall community recognised that the government had treated its supporters badly and told fibs. So, when Bill Shorten started saying that the Coalition has a secret plan to destroy Medicare, no amount of denial worked because the government had already betrayed a trust.
Julie Bishop is too smart to make that sort of mistake and, as Treasurer, would no doubt make the required changes to the Government’s superannuation plan to get it through the Senate (A fix for the Coalition’s super mess, June 2).
Bishop would also need to fix the total mess Morrison made of company tax cuts.
Forget big, 10-year corporation tax cuts — it’s too far away. Concentrate on the next three years. The ALP’s small business tax cuts affect only very small businesses and a Julie Bishop should be able to negotiate worthwhile smaller enterprise tax cuts (say a cut off at $20 million of turnover) to stimulate employment. And if she can’t, then she will no doubt go for employment incentives.
A Coalition government in 2016 should also treat the Business Council with great care.
They tend to promote ideas that are politically impossible like lifting the GST and lowering taxes on big companies. And many large companies are on the ALP side. Many transferred large sums to unions which funded the massive ALP election spending.
The Coalition’s strength has to be small business.
In its present form the plan to resurrect the Australian Building and Construction Commission has no chance of passing. But the old Senate was prepared to pass it with amendments. And, if it is linked to a full-scale drive to end the current corporate corruption, there would be a chance (Cash hopes to widen corporate corruption net, June 20).
Malcolm Turnbull will be in grave danger if he does not put the right ministers in place in this new environment. The same rules apply to corporations that hit trouble.
Investors turn to Asia
Our big banks might have retreated from Asia, but it’s an exciting region for long-term growth.
Franking grab will hit ASX
Labor’s franking credits policy is the first step in giving some pensioners a sharp clip under the ear, but investors will suffer too.
If Malcolm Turnbull remains as Prime Minister after the 2016 poll, he must start to use his knowledge of what works in the corporate world, the world he left to go into politics. Corporations that succeed make sure that underperforming executives are given other jobs or discarded and star performers are moved into vital areas.