Fairfax fronts up with company tax scoop, but Business Council push is a very old story

David Crowe has his first big scoop as The Sydney Morning Herald’s chief political correspondent, yesterday:

The nation’s peak business group is preparing a new offensive to back Malcolm Turnbull’s sweeping company tax cuts …

A “new offensive”? Business Council of Australia chief Jennifer Westacott’s opinion piece for The Australian, December 30 last year:

Our company tax rate has been frozen for 16 years while the rest of the world has pushed us further down the international leaderboard. Without urgent action, our competitiveness is at risk …

The new offensive Westacott talks about all the time? Crowe in The Australian, October 16 last year:

Parliament is being urged to back the next big round of company tax cuts …the Business Council of Australia has moved to shore up support for the reform …

Westacott speaking to The Australian as recently as February 8:

A business that isn’t thriving, held back by a tax rate frozen in time for the last 16 years, is a business that can’t create jobs.

There must be something new in this tax story? The Herald, yesterday:

The campaign will seize on the Prime Minister’s meeting with Donald Trump … to contrast the “open for business” approach in the US with the furious debate in Australia …

Oh dear. Westacott writes in The Australian, continued:

I described US President Donald Trump’s platform of aggressive company tax cuts and deregulation as a global game changer …

We’re just pleased Fairfax is aware there’s a need to cut company tax. Crowe reports for The Australian, May 25 last year:

Westacott said economic gains would be lost if the Senate scaled back the 10-year (tax cut) plan.

In other news, Bill Shorten deals with the bonk ban in Launceston, Sunday:

OK, let’s be very direct here. Mr Turnbull, for the last 11 days, has seen his government embroiled in crisis …

A few centuries — sorry, minutes later … The Opposition Leader in Tasmania, continued:

We will look at this question …

No wonder Shorten is scared to touch it. Tony Burke on the ABC’s National Wrap, Sunday:

Patricia Karvelas: She (Skye Laris, Burke’s wife) was your chief of staff?

Burke: That’s right. There’s a two-year gap between when Skye stopped working for me and when our relationship kicked off …

Liberal MP Michael Sukkar on Sky News, yesterday:

If the Labor Party … don’t support the change … then they should get out and argue the case as to why ministers should be able to have sexual relationships with staff.

Shorten did come out against minister-staff sex eventually. Townsville, yesterday:

… we’re not going to overturn the code of conduct

But one of Sukkar’s fellow Libs made the best case for the old rules. Julie Bishop in Canberra, February 9:

… we wouldn’t want to cross the line so that the moral police were able to dictate what happens between consenting adults.

Bishop on Sky News, yesterday:

I will abide by the ministerial code …