Politics podcast: Barnaby Joyce at his provocative best
Barnaby Joyce has confirmed he could cross the floor on the federal legislation associated with the National Energy Guarantee. “Of course I could,” he says.
Shorten might have done better to have said, “I stuffed up – that’s my recommendation, it’s not yet our decision”, and summoned a shadow cabinet meeting immediately to fix the matter.
In announcing the retreat, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann reaffirmed that the government remained committed to the cuts, and cast the July 28 byelections as a referendum on them.
The inflammatory ad runs as the government is making a last ditch effort against the odds to gather Senate support for the company tax legislation, due to be voted on this week.
More crucial than the fate of the company tax cuts is the government’s long struggle to nail down its NEG, with the crunch coming when Josh Frydenberg meets his COAG counterparts on August 10.
One paradox of leaders of personality parties is that while they attract voters and so can get others elected, this can be their downfall, because they are by nature loners not team people.
In an extraordinary Thursday night interview on Sky Hanson, who accused Burston of trying to defect to the Shooters party, said it was not the first time he had stabbed her in the back.
As much as the Senate is unpredictable, this does look like the end of the government’s chances of getting its company tax package through parliament before the election.
Comparing companies that receive a tax cut with those that don’t isn’t the right methodology to conclude that tax cuts create more employment or higher wages.
Tim Storer has one hell of a decision to make shortly after the May budget, when the government plans to bring back its legislation to give tax cuts to big business.