Malcolm Turnbull has blasted Labor for bringing the Australian Electoral Commission’s impartiality into question, saying its criticism of the delayed byelections is “outrageous”.
The opposition is smouldering over the AEC’s advice, revealed on Thursday, that the “optimal date” for the five super Saturday byelections was 28 July, the last day of Labor’s national conference in Adelaide.
On Friday Labor’s national president, Mark Butler, told the ABC the party would “obviously” not hold its conference on the same day. Labor’s national executive committee met to begin drawing up plans to postpone the conference, but the logistics of alternative dates are difficult given the uncertainty of when the federal election will be called.
With byelection campaigns under way, speculation has intensified that the government will dump its politically unpopular company tax cut.
Labor is preparing to fight the byelections and the next federal election by pitting its higher social spending against what it calls the Turnbull government’s “giveaway” to big business and is wary of early signs the government may abandon the tax cut package.
On Friday the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, visited the marginal Queensland seat of Longman, while frontbench MP Anthony Albanese travelled to Braddon in Tasmania.
At a doorstop in Caboolture Shorten said Labor would defer the conference but promised it “will go on in the future”.
He accused the Coalition of a “sneaky and tricky manoeuvre” by adopting the 28 July date recommended by the AEC, arguing it will mean half a million Australians will be unrepresented for three months.
On Thursday night the Labor leader in the Senate, Penny Wong, said the advised date “looks partisan”. Butler said the episode “stinks of interference ... with the independent electoral commission”.
In Gosford, the prime minister said it was “outrageous of the Labor party to make those accusations or inferences” against the AEC.
“The electoral commission is utterly impartial and non-partisan,” Turnbull said.
The reasoning behind the 28 July date was “all set out clearly”.
Labor has rejected the AEC’s rationale for the date, arguing that the new process to check if candidates have any constitutional disqualifications does not justify the 79-day delay and noting that the Bennelong byelection was held on the first day of New South Wales school holidays.
Earlier, Shorten said that when the government lost MPs in the citizenship crisis it was able “to knock together a byelection in the blink of an eye”.
“But when it comes to areas where [Turnbull] is not so sure, where he doesn’t want to face judgment on his company tax cuts for big banks, his cuts to hospitals and schools, then all of a sudden we have got every excuse under the sun and we can’t have them quickly,” he said.
This week the government’s chances of passing the company tax cuts all but evaporated when One Nation reversed its support.
While Turnbull and the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, were at first prepared to commit to take the tax cut for companies earning more than $50m to the next election, by midweek senior ministers were reluctant to commit, leaving room to reposition if the package is refashioned or scrapped.
On Friday Pyne said the government was “quite happy to campaign” on Labor’s intention to repeal $35bn of tax cuts for small to medium businesses that have already passed the Senate.
“But if we can’t get it through the Senate, we can’t get it through the Senate,” Pyne said to his co-host Labor frontbencher Richard Marles on Sky News.
“Now, we will do our very best and I think we will. But if you want to campaign as the low tax party, I think you’ll be, you’ll be, you’ll be pushing the proverbial uphill as they say.”
When Marles said that it “sounds a little bit like you’ve just opened the door to walking away from your company tax cut plan” Pyne suggested that Labor vote for the package but did not commit to the big business tax cuts.
