Prime Minister Anthony Albanese claims Labor has ‘won’ Budget debate while Angus Taylor begs for discipline

Anthony Albanese has claimed his Government has “won” the Budget debate, just hours after his Treasurer continued to cop a grilling over whether the litany of broken promises contained within amounted to an assault on Aussie aspiration.

“Your Budget will see Australians pay one of the highest capital gains tax rates in the world. What do you make of the claim that this is a tax on ambition?” Sunrise host Nat Barr asked in one of four breakfast television interviews faced by Jim Chalmers on Tuesday.

“I reject both of those assertions actually, Nat, but I understand that when you’re making difficult tax reforms, ambitious tax reforms, which are all about cutting taxes for workers and making things fairer for first home buyers, there won’t be unanimous support for that,” Dr Chalmers replied.

Down the hallways of Parliament House, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor and his offsiders were pointedly emphasising the need for discipline and unity, amid gloom and freelancing in the wake of a record-low poll.

The contrast between the two leaders was visible during a rowdy Question Time that culminated in Liberal MP Garth Hamilton being banned from Parliament for 24 hours.

Despite the ongoing criticism of the May Budget — which polls have ranked as the most poorly received in decades — the Prime Minister was riding high weeks out from Labor’s triennial celebration of itself.

He used the regular Tuesday caucus meeting of Labor MPs to point to the ALP national conference in July as an opportunity to “showcase ourselves as an inclusive, open democratic party”, in contrast to the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation.

“We won’t have the shemozzle we’ve seen with our opponents, electing Tony Abbott, so that he can engage in cut-through interviews with Peta Credlin,” Mr Albanese told colleagues of the former PM, who the Liberals recently elected national president of their party, and his ex-chief of staff.

ALP national secretary Paul Erickson briefed MPs on what to expect at next month’s conference and unveiled the agenda and draft platform that were released to delegates on Tuesday.

The agenda’s sessions hit all the buzzwords that populate Mr Albanese’s stump speeches, including “an economy that works for everyone”, “bringing people together” and “Australia’s place in a changing world”.

Mr Albanese thanked all MPs “for their discipline and solidarity in helping make sure that we won the debates following the Budget”, pointing out that key elements had now been legislated.

The Government hopes that with the capital gains tax and negative gearing changes passing, the heat will come out of the arguments against the changes, put forward vociferously by investors and businesses small and large.

“Everyone now accepts that the housing market is broken — once that premise was accepted, there was an obligation to act,” Mr Albanese said.

“We will keep hearing from young people who had given up and will now own their first home.”

But it will have to come back after the winter break with fixes to the tax package plus a new tranche of legislation to impose a minimum 30 per cent tax on discretionary trusts.

Mr Taylor, his deputy Jane Hume and Nationals leader Matt Canavan used their speeches to Coalition MPs — the day after two polls showed their parties slipping further behind — to urge them to pull in the same direction.

A suggestion on Monday from Liberal frontbencher Melissa McIntosh that her party needed to re-brand has been met with annoyance and frustration internally.

“Australians don’t want us to re-brand, they want to change the country,” Senate leader Michaelia Cash said.

Many are urging their Coalition colleagues to ride out what they predict could be six more months of bad poll numbers from voters angry at the state of the world and politics.

But the response to the Newspoll and Redbridge numbers on Monday drove the party off-message for another day when it wanted to focus on the continuing problems bubbling up with the government’s tax plans.

Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson tried to talk about the “widows’ tax” loophole in the capital gains tax discount legislation passed last week when he fronted media cameras on Tuesday morning, only to be hit with a barrage of questions about whether his party needed a new brand.

“I’ve said consistently there’s a lot more work to do to build out the blue horizon of liberal hope,” Mr Wilson said.

He went on to spruik his book, The New Social Contract: Renewing the Liberal Vision for Australia, and its discussion of “the choice … between a liberal democratic future or a social democratic future”.

Senator Hume told colleagues they had to be “relentlessly disciplined” in talking about the issues that mattered most to Australians — not themselves.

Mr Taylor also called for “discipline” multiple times, saying that Australians were “hurting right now and grieving for their country”.

And Senator Canavan said there was “too much talk about polling and parties” when politicians came to Canberra, and not enough about the people they represented who were struggling.

He too was faced with being pushed off message at a press conference about farming, where Liberal frontbencher and key Taylor lieutenant Tony Pasin was quizzed about a suggestion he made to The Australian earlier in the month that the Coalition and One Nation could come to an agreement about not competing in some seats.

The South Australian said his comments had been “misinterpreted” and that the conservative parties “should do everything we can to defeat Labor”.

The cumulative frustration boiled over for Groom MP Mr Hamilton — a rural firefighter — who was barred from the Lower House for 24 hours after swearing and banging his desk while Emergency Management Minister Kristy McBain accused Mr Taylor of claiming firefighters didn’t do their job.

The Queenslander explained himself on Sky after the censure, saying the minister had “lied” about his leader.

“This is what Question Time has become. An hour of the Government avoiding their responsibility to talk about the issues that are facing Australians, how difficult it is out there, and they just try and turn these gutter attacks onto Angus,” he said.