As the faux-election season heats up, so did the opening day of Parliament, with the Albanese government sinking its teeth into the opposition over a policy more lunchroom than boardroom.
Labor took every chance to turn Question Time into a roasting session for Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s tax break for small businesses engaging in lunch or entertainment.
Initially, Dutton, backed by Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor and Deputy Leader Sussan Ley, tried to press the government on the cost-of-living crisis.
Tax-Free Lunches or Budget Blowout?
On Feb 2, Dutton pitched his policy, offering small businesses a tax deduction of up to $20,000 for work-related dining and entertainment—minus the booze.Dutton said it as a win for both businesses and employees, saying it would “help retention and provide a reward to employees.” What he didn’t offer was a cost estimate.
Albanese wasted no time skewering the plan.
“The only policy they’ve put forward is for every taxpayer to fund a free lunch,” he said. The prime minister said that instead of thinking out of box the opposition was “thinking inside the lunch box.”
Treasurer Chalmers was equally scathing, arguing the opposition offered “lower wages for workers and longer lunches for bosses, with the taxpayers to foot the bill.”
He quipped that the proposal was “the only kind of policy that could have been agreed at the tail end of a very long lunch.”
While the opposition remained tight-lipped on the true cost of its plan, Labor claims Treasury has pegged it at $1.6 billion annually in terms of lost tax revenue.
Dutton’s camp disputes that figure, with Taylor insisting the independent Parliamentary Budget Office put the cost at “under $250 million.”
Political Food Fight Intensifies
Taylor criticised Treasury, calling the cost estimate “an egregious politicisation of the public service.”He vowed to write to Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy for an explanation, accusing Labor of using bureaucrats as attack dogs.
Chalmers dismissed the claim as “unhinged,” saying Taylor had “lost the plot.”
Dutton also took aim at Albanese, highlighting existing tax rules that let major corporations like Qantas claim lavish boardroom meals as deductions.
“A lunch that the prime minister or the treasurer could attend or perhaps have in the past,” he said, suggesting hypocrisy in Labor’s attack on his policy.
The Coalition has since tweaked its messaging, clarifying that while “food and entertainment” would be covered, golf days and other leisure activities would not.
The plan, set to run for two years, would be exempt from fringe benefits tax, making it a tempting bite for hospitality businesses.
Dutton insists the policy would “help businesses survive” under Labor’s economic pressures, arguing that simplifying tax deductions would cut red tape and boost struggling sectors.
But with the government relishing every opportunity to paint the policy as a budget blowout, it seems Dutton’s tax-free lunch is already a hot potato in the election debate.
