Anthony Albanese says Bill Shorten has a “right” to announce Labor policy and he says his recent speech laying out an alternative manifesto was not an attempt to signal to colleagues that he was available for the top job.



Albanese’s comments came as Tasmanian backbencher Ross Hart characterised Shorten’s controversial decision on Tuesday to announce that Labor would repeal tax cuts for firms earning between $10m and $50m as a “captain’s call” and failed to endorse it, despite facing 13 questions about it during a tortuous radio interview on Wednesday.

Hart attempted to clean up the performance, taking to social media to endorse Shorten’s decision which has raised eyebrows internally because it didn’t go to the shadow cabinet or caucus.

RossHartMP (@RossHartMP) 1/2 In case there’s any doubt, I absolutely support our position on company tax.

I’ve always backed tax cuts for small business – and big business should not get tax cuts that are funded by cuts to schools & hospitals.

RossHartMP (@RossHartMP) 2/2 Tasmania & Australia need a Labor Govt with Bill Shorten as PM, because only Bill has a plan for better schools, better hospitals and better income tax cuts.#auspol

But the Turnbull government – which suffered its own setback when the One Nation leader Pauline Hanson declared on Wednesday she was not for turning on their proposed company tax cut for Australia’s biggest companies – made hay with Labor’s travails in question time.

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The prime minister declared that by rolling back the tax cuts for firms turning over between $10m and $50m, “the leader of the opposition has declared war on businesses of every size in Australia”.

Malcolm Turnbull said Shorten attempted to portray himself as “the enemy of big banks and insurance companies” but the businesses he’s taking on “are to be found in every town and every suburb, in every electorate represented here”.

“The businesses he’s going after are numbered in the hundreds of thousands. They are right around Australia and as the member for Bass [Ross Hart] understands very well, there are dozens of them in Launceston and he knows that those businesses are going to be threatened and the jobs of their workers threatened and in that interview, as Carlton pressed him, he refused to endorse the reckless agenda of the leader of the opposition.

“We well understand why he would not tie himself to that catastrophic captain’s call.”

The Albanese speech, delivered last Friday, has upset Labor’s internal equilibrium. In his first public comments since it was delivered, Albanese downplayed his intervention, saying the speech was similar to other “considered speeches” he had given over the last couple of years.

Asked whether it was a valid interpretation of his speech to say he was making himself available for the top job, Albanese responded: “No it is not.”

The frontbencher repeated one of the main arguments of last Friday’s speech, that Labor “had to appeal to not just members of trade unions, but we have to appeal to small businesses, to people who are contractors, to people who are professionals and aren’t in any union and that’s just common sense” – but he said Shorten did those things.

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Asked whether he supported Shorten’s decision on repealing part of the legislated company tax cuts, Albanese said people had to consider Labor’s offerings “as a whole and I think the support for the investment guarantee that we are putting forward will be worth more than the tax changes which come in over a period of time of course, for businesses between $10m and $50m and that will be of significantly more benefit for them”.

Albanese did however make the point that internal consultation would come before the party’s next major decision on the Turnbull government’s company tax cuts, which is whether to roll back tax relief for businesses with a turnover of between $2m and $10m.

“Well, what Bill said yesterday is that shadow cabinet will consider the issue of businesses with a turnover between $2m and $10m and that will be a decision that we’ll make at an appropriate time and announce,” Albanese said.