The Turnbull government has been hit by yet another embarrassing parliamentary blunder after a One Nation no-show blocked its proposed $5 departure tax increase.
The Coalition tried to rush the vote through on Wednesday night, minutes before adjournment, thinking it had the numbers.
But Pauline Hanson and her One Nation colleague Brian Burston, who would have voted with the government, were not in the chamber and missed the vote.
It allowed Labor, the Greens and the crossbenchers Jacqui Lambie and David Leyonhjelm to join forces to stop the legislation, defeating it 31 to 30.
The tactical blunder has thrown the government’s plans into disarray. It hoped to increase the departure tax by $5 (to $60) to pay for its proposed reduction in the backpacker tax, from 32.5% to 19%.
It says it plans to recommit the vote on Thursday afternoon.
Hanson released a statement on Thursday morning saying she now plans to move an amendment to freeze the departure tax for five years. If she had voted with the government on Wednesday night she would have voted without that amendment.
“Although the vote was unsuccessful last night I am hopeful that once it is reintroduced into the house it will pass with our amendment,” Hanson said on Thursday. “All we want is for the tax to remain steady for five years so the travel and tourism industry has some certainty.”
Senator David Leyonhjelm said Hanson and Burston had missed the vote because they did not realise it was a live vote when they heard the Senate bells. He says he voted against the bill because he does not want the extra tax.
The Labor senator Katy Gallagher criticised the government on Thursday for trying to pull a “swifty” in the Senate, saying its plan had backfired.
“The government had presented the bills, we were debating the bills and then they tried to pull a swifty just before the adjournment and tried to push those bills to a vote,” Gallagher said.
“That plan was going well until they didn’t have the numbers. We called for a separation of the vote on the passenger movement charge and the government lost that vote.
“So, that means that bill will not be debated in the Senate, it has been rejected at the second-reading stage and that blows a $260m hole in the government’s package and it remains to be seen how they deal with that.”
Barnaby Joyce criticised the Labor party for voting against the departure tax, saying the tax was needed to pay for a reduction in the backpacker tax. He said Labor was pushing for a lower backpacker tax than the Coalition (10.5% compared with 19%), but was refusing to say how it would pay for it.
Tony Mahar, the chief executive of the National Farmers’ Federation, said the government and Labor were playing politics with the issue.
“While ever the government sees the tax as a budget-fix measure, and while ever the opposition and crossbenchers see it as a political edge, we won’t get an outcome,” he said.
