For reasons which escape me, apparently the biggest issue facing the nation at the moment is….Schnitty Tax Breaks.

Angus Taylor asks ANOTHER question asking about the tax breaks for big business when it comes to catering their meetings (I can not believe I just typed that sentence).

Treasurer, a large company can cater for a lunch with food and alcohol in its boardroom worth thousands of dollars and can claim that cost as a tax deduction. What is the cost of this tax policy to the budget?”

Jim Chalmers responds:

Their policy for lower wages for workers and longer lunches for bosses is a matter of fairness – but not the way that they think it is. Not the way that they think it is. And if the member for Hume wants to be the Treasurer of this country, he really should know that the numbers that he is asking for are not itemised in the budget. And that’s because they are part of the tax base, and we’re not proposing to change it. The only party in here proposing to make it easier for bosses to claim long lunches, paid for by workers and taxpayers, is those opposite, Mr Speaker.

They are the only ones – proposing to change these arrangements. I can hear him chirping away. He hasn’t been this unhappy since inflation came in at the lower end of the RBA target band.

There are once again a flurry of points of orders and arguments about whether or not the treasurer is in order (he is) and whether Peter Dutton can keep making political statements in raising points of orders (he can’t, but that’s not going to stop him).

Chalmers then comes back to his favourite topic and his reason for getting out of bed in the morning – slamming Angus Taylor:

“We tried to warn the Opposition Leader that, if you put this bloke in charge of the costings, it would go bad. And it turns out it did.”

He is out of time.