Peter Dutton’s business lunch tax plan takes the piss

Peter Dutton’s dearth of policies just months, and more likely weeks, out from a federal election hasn’t yet begun to tell against him in the polls, even as the mainstream media belatedly starts to notice.

He has no cost of living policies beyond the insistence that building nuclear reactors for hundreds of billions of dollars by the late 2040s will lower power bills immediately, and a commitment to establishing divestment powers, but only for large retailers.

He has a housing policy inherited from Scott Morrison, to allow first home buyers to use their super, thereby inflating house prices even more.

He no longer has a migration policy, and it’s not clear whether he will increase or reduce the number of migrants coming to fill workforce shortages in Australia.

For a long time this refusal to discuss policy has looked tactical. But as the election comes closer and closer, perhaps it’s the case that Dutton — who has never demonstrated any grasp of policy or economics throughout his political career — simply doesn’t have the capacity to develop worthwhile policies. Or, he simply doesn’t care.

That’s the only conclusion possible after yesterday’s shambolic release of Dutton’s latest “policy”, a $20,000 annual tax deduction for small business to claim food and entertainment at clubs, pubs and restaurants.

It was released without costings, and no forecast of usage.

If all of Australia’s 2.5 million small businesses took advantage of the deduction, it would cost taxpayers around $12.5 billion a year in lost revenue — for an “initial” two years — to fund the return of the long business lunch, an iniquitous lurk stamped out by Bob Hawke when he introduced the Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT, or the “Farewell Bob Tax” as whiny corporate parasites labelled it at the time). The booze component will not be deductible, but based on Dutton’s detail-free announcement, all other “entertainment” — strip clubs, anyone? — will be.

Thank you, taxpayers.

The Coalition has historical form on this. It vehemently opposed the FBT. “The Hawke government’s fringe benefits tax will prove a significant factor in its defeat at the next election,” Fred Chaney, then Coalition senate leader, opined in October 1986, claiming it was “imposing a major new charge on business, and small business in particular”. Instead the FBT became a core part of the tax system and taxpayers no longer subsidised company executives spending the afternoon on the grog or “training” at holiday resorts.

At a time when there is a persistent gap between the 25% of receipts the federal government earns and the 26%+ of spending it is committed to, and deficits are forecast to stretch off into the 2030s, instead of tightening the tax system and getting rid of loopholes and lurks, Dutton wants to reestablish an old rort from the days of padded shoulders and big hair. It’s bad enough that neither side of politics is willing to be honest with voters about the need to match the increased level of spending demanded by the electorate with an increased level of taxation, but Dutton now wants to drive a $10 billion-plus truck through annual receipts.

It’s an idea so stupid even the Financial Review lambasted it. Is this the best that Dutton and his team — which is, admittedly, the weakest frontbench on either side for 20 years — can actually do? Where was shadow finance minister Jane Hume in the announcement? Sulking because she was rolled on such a dumb idea?

Or is it not so much that Dutton can’t produce worthwhile policy, or for that matter add up, but that he doesn’t care? Is the opposition leader so confident he can scare his way to victory against an insipid Labor outfit that his policy offerings will simply be trolling? A nuclear power policy that blatantly doesn’t add up. A migration policy that changes from week to week. A housing policy designed to transfer retirement savings from young people to homeowners. And now, the return of the long lunch.

It’s a man taking the piss out of the entire idea of worthwhile public policy.

Can you identify any serious policy ideas from Peter Dutton? Write to us at letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.