KATE EMERY: Return of the long lunch as promised by Peter Dutton is the tax reform no one asked for

Grab your flux capacitor and fire up the DeLorean because we’re going back in time.

In the US it’s simultaneously 2016 and the 1970s, with the Village People — at least one original member and a bunch of other guys who look the part and know the words — providing the soundtrack for US president-elect Donald Trump’s pre-inauguration love-fest in Washington DC.

Fittingly, Mr Trump took the opportunity to vow transparency on three of the big issues of 2025: the assassinations of John F Kennedy (1963), Robert F Kennedy (1968) and Martin Luther King Junior (1968).

“In the coming days, we are going to make public remaining records related to the assassinations of President John F Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, as well as Dr Martin Luther King Junior and other topics of great public interest,” Mr Trump told the rally.

Never mind that he promised more or less the same thing during his first term, only to bow to national security concerns. If there’s one thing that proves the short-term nature of US voters’ memories it’s that Mr Trump is back for a second term at all.

It’s unclear exactly how far into the past Mr Trump plans to take his country but hopefully he’ll stop before he hits 1951, which is when the 22nd amendment to the constitution — the one limiting presidents to just the two terms — came into play.

Meanwhile, in Australia we’re heading back to the 1980s if the Federal Opposition have it their way, with Opposition leader Peter Dutton attempting to bring back the business long lunch.

Mr Dutton, last seen declaring Federal Labor’s energy rebates a “sugar hit” that would only worsen inflation and prolong the pain of high interest rates, dished up a sweet treat of his own at the weekend in the form of tax deductible lunches for small businesses.

The as-yet uncosted proposal — it’s only an election year, why get bogged down with numbers? — would exclude entertainment expenses from the fringe benefits tax.

In essence, it would let taxpayers pick up the tab for business lunches, or a round of golf with clients, if the company’s annual turnover was no more than $10m, up to the value of $20,000.

Make free lunches great again!

Disappointingly for every aspiring Don Draper out there, alcohol won’t be covered by the proposal, so it’s not quite a return to the days of the taxpayer-funded, alcohol-soaked and liver-depleting long lunches of the eighties.

The Hawke government ended that particular party with its fringe benefits tax and possibly Mr Dutton could imagine the optics on reopening those particular Moet floodgates.

Mr Dutton’s proposal has been broadly welcomed by the hospitality sector, as you’d expect, and sold by him as cost-of-living relief for both the small business and the hospitality sectors.

“This is a win for the small business spending the money on their staff or clients and a win for the hospitality venues who will see an increased spend in their businesses,” is how Mr Dutton sold it.

“It will help businesses recover from a horrible period under three years of Labor.”

What Mr Dutton hasn’t offered, possibly because there’s not one, is an explanation of how money spent to help people pay their energy bills is inflationary but money spent to help restaurants pay their bills is not.

If the implication is that homeowners struggling to keep the lights on aren’t worthy of a Government handout that could keep inflation higher but small businesses whose staffers are crying out for a free parmi and chips are, well, it would be nice to hear Mr Dutton say it.

Ideally to the face of one of those homeowners.

The free lunch proposal has also left some in the business community despairing that this is what tax reform looks like in 2025: in the words of one industry veteran a “dumbed down idea” in place of anything more meaningful, for fear of damaging your election chances.

Why tackle the high corporate tax rate when you can hand out free bowls of carbonara instead?

Why tackle the perpetual problem of payroll tax and, say, use Federal cash to get the States and Territories to at least adopt a uniform approach to the State-based tax, when you can offer up a round of free burgers instead?

Given that Mr Dutton’s campaign, to date, has been policy light, it’s telling that this thought bubble is one of the few that made it out to the public. It certainly doesn’t bode well for any serious tax reform agenda.

Those critics would probably quite like to see the DeLorean take a trip back to the days of former prime ministers John Howard, Paul Keating or Bob Hawke, when serious tax reform didn’t involve a side of chips.