All over for Bill Shorten

What an embarrassment to his party? He's lost it!


BILL Shorten today accused opponent Malcolm Turnbull of a credibility-smashing gaffe — and then probably wished he hadn’t.

The Labor leader used a National Press Club speech, one of his last major set pieces before the July 2 poll, to pledge stable government, even with a fragmented Senate.
Mr Shorten told voters not to trust the Coalition to keep promises and took special aim at the Prime Minister.

He quoted remarks by Mr Turnbull that he said would “go down as the defining moment of the campaign”.

It was “the gaffe that marked the end of the Prime Minister’s credibility”.
Mr Turnbull had said: “…what political parties say they will support and oppose at one time is not necessarily ultimately what they will do.”
Mr Shorten told the NPC: “Malcolm Turnbull had simply said, ‘Don’t bother (with the Coalition platform). It’s a lie.’”

However, the Prime Minister had not been talking about his own policies. He was referring to Labor’s, and went on to list examples of retreats.
“You have seen the Labor Party has opposed many measures of ours at which they have subsequently supported or subsequently changed their position on,” Mr Turnbull had told reporters.

“The best-known of those is obviously the School Kids Bonus, which they made an iconic issue and launched petitions and campaigns and said they were going to fight all the way to election day to restore it and then did a very quick backflip on that.”

The context seemed to come as a surprise to Mr Shorten when told by a reporter.
But he stood firm on Labor’s promise to push for gay marriage.
The Labor Leader hinted that if in Opposition he might oppose Malcolm Turnbull’s “grubby deal” to call a plebiscite on same-sex marriage. If he won government, his first legislation would be to change the Marriage Act.

“Why should I have to accept and sign up to Malcolm Turnbull’s grubby deal with the right wing of his party? I’m not going to,” said Mr Shorten of legislation needed to create the plebiscite.
He said: “What happens after the election if we don’t win, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it"

“But in the meantime, I want to say to every person in Australia who supports marriage equality, that we will implement it in the first 100 days [of government].”
Both leaders have been campaigning hard on assurances of stability, despite global economic ructions, and the possibility of a fractured Senate.

Mr Shorten said a Labor government’s “immediate focus will be on finding the maximum we agree on and building on that”.

He said: “There is no point pretending that any government elected can guarantee control of the Senate.

“Keeping our promises and offering certainty over the next term depends upon a capacity to negotiate with that Parliament.”