Robert Schwarten: LNP hypocrisy over stage 3 tax cut change

OPINION: Peter Dutton was a senior minister in a government that broke promises quicker a bull breaks plates in a china shop, writes Robert Schwarten.

A broken promise, it now seems, is the outrage of the millennium – and unlike the rest of us, a politician can’t ever change their mind on anything.

What Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has done is commit the same amount of money to tax cuts – but in a way where the better-off get a bit less, the poor get a bit more, and those in the middle get a fairer go too.

With prices screaming ahead of wages at a speed only Dick Johnson could achieve, all the people I speak with think it is only fair to be giving a bit more to those who are struggling to put the daily bread on the table.

rime Minister Anthony Albanese in Brisbane this week. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

But back to the promise. If you look at former prime ministers: Robert Menzies promised to cut the public service, Gough Whitlam promised to buy back the farm, Bob Hawke big-noted himself about an end to child poverty, Paul Keating promised to get rid of negative gearing (he did, but then went back on his word and reintroduced it because of house price collapse), and John Howard vowed no GST – but that was not a “core promise”, or so he claimed as justification.

More recently, Kevin Rudd promised that “the buck would stop with him” when it came to health. It didn’t. Tony Abbott promised no cuts to education or the ABC – a promise that only lasted a few weeks until budget time. Julia Gillard promised no carbon tax, until the only way she could govern was by becoming hostage to the Greens.

And don’t even start me on the minor parties, who make promises all the time knowing full well they will never be accountable for them. Pauline Hanson promises the world and does not deliver so much as an atlas. The Greens variously promise less tax, more tax, free rent, capped rent, the right to steal without penalty, public housing everywhere but in their leafy habitats, no coal but plenty of power and steel. Their faux promises would fill more pages than War and Peace.

People on the one hand claim politicians live in ivory towers and know nothing about the cost of living. But when a government – as we all do – cuts their cloth to match a changed circumstance, they are attacked for it.

If hypocrisy was an Olympic event, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton would be the Captain of Australia. The government that he was a senior minister in broke promises quicker than a china shop bull breaks plates. Now, the state Opposition Leader David Crisafulli says he will campaign on the tax cuts. London to a brick he will not keep that promise.

Robert Schwarten was a Beattie government minister.

Originally published as Robert Schwarten: LNP hypocrisy over stage 3 tax cut change