Federal budget 2018: Turnbull attacks Shorten on costings

Malcolm Turnbull attacks Labor’s budget credibility, saying their costings were done “on the back of an envelope’’.

Malcolm Turnbull on a visit to the Traffic Management Centre in Sydney today. Picture: AAP

Malcolm Turnbull says “unbelieva-Bill Shorten” costed his tax cuts “on the back of an envelope” as he attacked the credibility of the opposition’s economic agenda while also declaring it would affect jobs and growth.

The Prime Minister said the Opposition Leader’s policies were “unfunded” and “uncosted” and argued Labor would rely on its dividend imputation crackdown to fund spending increases.

“What you saw from the Labor Party was unfunded, uncosted and unbelieva-Bill Shorten, you can’t believe a word he says,” Mr Turnbull said.

“He has not produced any of these costings, it is perfectly obvious that he has done these numbers on the back of an envelope following Scott Morrison’s budget speech on Tuesday night; in fact, I think they have come very close to conceding that.

“This is the guy who said he gave a gold-plated guarantee that is members of parliament were eligible to sit in the parliament after the High Court had said last year clearly they weren’t, and the High Court had to say it again, then only after the High Court twice delivered that message have they done the right thing and resigned.”

The Treasurer rolled out the same line against Mr Shorten several times this morning.

“Bill Shorten is unbelieva-Bill, he can’t be believed,” Mr Morrison told ABC radio.

“He can’t even be believed on his parliamentary members. He said they were rolled gold.

“I don’t believe what he is saying, he is making a whole bunch of promises about inequality and you can’t trust them. This is a bloke who thought company taxes should be lower and now he is saying they should be higher. You can never believe him when he says other taxes should be lower because he can’t keep the same position on things.”

Treasurer @ScottMorrisonMP: @Billshorten is unbelievea-Bill, his rolled gold guarantees are not worth the paper they're printed on.

RELATED: https://t.co/IJEhHTevt1 #amagenda pic.twitter.com/rCHGa4wwkl

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) May 10, 2018

Mr Turnbull said Labor’s extra spending revealed last night — including tax breaks of up nearly $1000 for middle- and lower-income earners and more money for hospitals and TAFEs — would be funded by “raiding the savings of “older Australians”, among other tax increases.

“That is going to be $5 billion a year grabbing from older Australians who have worked hard all of their lives, he is going to jack up the taxes on small and medium businesses whose taxes we have reduced and who are now investing and employing,” Mr Turnbull said.

“He wants to put up the tax on investment in property, he wants to go after trusts, he wants to put up personal income tax. Bill Shorten wants to grab over $200 billion of tax and he expects us to believe that he is trying to look after hardworking Australians, it is unbelievable, he is unbelieva-Bill.”

Mr Turnbull said he was not worried middle- and lower-income Australians would have a favourable view to Labor’s higher income tax cuts as they would trust the Coalition to manage to economy.

“Australians understand that a strong economy is what delivers jobs, and is what delivers guaranteed essential services and they know they can trust the Coalition and the government I lead to manage the economy and they certainly know you cannot trust Bill Shorten and you cannot trust Labor with Australians’ money,” he said.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said Mr Shorten has a track record of being a liar.

“People cannot trust Bill Shorten. I have never seen anyone who is so shameless, so deliberate and so persistent in lying to the Australian people, misleading the Australian people,” Senator Cormann told Sky News.

“They have not released any detail. No plan. No costings. They are spending the same money several times over.

“You have to remember, Bill Shorten has a track record now, a persistent track record as a liar. Bill Shorten lies.”

Senator Cormann noted the Opposition Leader lied about the Coalition planning to privatise Medicare at the last election.

“He lied about the citizenship status of his MPs at a time when he knew that he had dual citizens on his team, sitting in parliament in breach of the constitution,” Senator Cormann said.

“He continues to lie about the effect of our company tax cuts, calling them a tax giveaway to the big end of town, multinationals and banks, at a time when he knows that nearly half of those tax cuts are benefitting small and medium sized businesses.”

A spokesman for Mr Shorten said: “I don’t care what Mathias Cormann says.”