“If you go down to the pub and talk to small business people, they’re not talking about econometric models. The Government doesn’t need to be convinced about the need to give small and medium-sized businesses a tax cut.”
Scott Morrison, explaining why the government wouldn’t be releasing any economic modelling on the company tax cuts.
“Beer, Bazza?”
“Thanks.”
“Two beers, please… What ya reading?”
“Oh, there’s this news thing where Scott Morrison says he isn’t releasing economic modelling because people at the pub aren’t interested in it.”
“Right. I guess that’s why they’re not releasing any of those people on Nauru or Manus Island. We’re just not interested in them.”
“Yeah, and there’s a lot of other things that I’m not interested in… Like that photo of Malcolm Turnbull scrubbing that guy’s floor.”
“What photo?”
“Oh, there’s a photo of Malcolm Turnbull on his hands and knees scrubbing some guy’s floor. I’ll find it on my phone. Here, look.”
“Is this their latest idea for reducing the deficit?”
“No, the guy had his business in the flood area, so Malcolm flew up there to scrub his floor.”
“Right, I see. But I don’t get why he had to do it when there’s all those other guys standing around.”
“It’s to show how much he cares.”
“Wouldn’t it have been better to use the money spent getting him there to pay someone local to do it?”
“No, it was more the symbolic gesture.”
“Right. I get it. Malcolm gets down on his hands and knees for some small businessman to show that he’s prepared to do it for anyone and not just the Liberal MPs.”
“Well, not anyone. The guy owned a business. I mean, Malcolm wouldn’t go to someone’s house and do it, because that’d be beneath him.”
“Obviously, but I still think the guy would rather Malcolm had just said here’s, I dunno, $1.75 million, pay someone else to fix up your shop and go on a good holiday.”
“He can’t splash around taxpayers’ money like that. We’ve got a Budget crisis to solve, and because the tax cuts only extend to companies with $50 million turnover, that’s going to make it harder to encourage investment.”
“Hang on. Don’t the tax cuts reduce revenue?”
“Yeah, but the idea is that if they cut company tax then there’ll be more money to invest and they’ll hire more people.”
“Why?”
“Think of it like a household budget. You’ve got a limited amount of money, so you have the housekeeper coming in everyday and the gardener comes in on weekends. You get a tax cut and so you get a second housekeeper and extend the gardeners hours to four days a week.”
“Why would I do that? I’ve barely got enough work for the gardener on weekends.”
“You have a gardener?”
“No, but I was imagining what he’d do for two days because I get the gardening all done on Sundays. I think I’ll sack the lazy bastard.”
“Anyway, if you got a tax cut you could hire a housekeeper.”
“It’d need to be a bloody big tax cut.”
“Whatever, I’m sure you’re not interested in how the tax cuts are going to reduce the deficit because you’d need to look at the economic modelling for that and nobody’s interested in that.”
“Well, certainly not anyone in the pub.”
“No, and that’s the test, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, you don’t want to be releasing things for academics and journalists to look at.”
“Pity they didn’t realise that before they released that ‘Real Solutions’ book in 2013. They could have saved heaps.”
“Yeah, who’d be bothered reading that. It was enough to know that they had solutions, even if I can’t remember what the problem was.”
“A budget emergency. The government was going deeper and deeper into debt and Labor were managing it badly.”
“Isn’t the government further in debt now than when they came to office?”
“Yeah, but the difference is that the Liberals are managing it well.”
“Well, whatever, I’m not interested, so we really should stop discussing it.’
“Yeah, another beer?”
“Why not? I’ll use my tax cut.”
“But you didn’t get a tax cut.”
“No, but I’ll ask my boss for the money on Monday. He got one.”
“Oh, no problem then.”
“No, not a problem. I’ll just tell him that I used it to stimulate jobs.”
“Let’s have two then. He can afford it!”
“Four beers, please!”
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