Stephen Jones stumbles over a parliamentary action on retirement

Jim Chalmer’s MP has stumbled into a shock performance in parliament where he was mocked for not answering direct questions about the super.

Assistant treasurer Stephen Jones came under siege during Question Time on Thursday after missing Wednesday’s session.

The opposition identified the junior minister as a “weak link” in Anthony Albanese’s team after he struggled to succinctly explain the government’s retirement changes.

So on Thursday he received six questions about the technicalities of the plan to halve tax concessions from 15 to 30 percent for Australians with more than $3 million in their super fund.

Mr. Jones’ responses were mostly an improvement over Wednesday’s, though at one point a staffer had to send a note to the camera to help him.

However, he stumbled when asked if he could identify any Act of Parliament with a provision to impose a tax on unrealized gains.

‘The purpose of our change is to ensure that we maintain the integrity of our retirement system. we will make sure as we implement our reforms to the retirement scheme that we will have…’, he said.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton was unimpressed by Jones’s mumbo-jumbo and cut him off from his seat.

‘Can this guy answer a direct question? He doesn’t have a clue… if he doesn’t know, take it with notice,’ he said.

President Milton Dick interrupted Mr. Jones, advising him that he was asked a very specific question and that he should stick to answering it.

“This is a new reform, there is no question about it, and it is absolutely true that we are doing things in a different way…” he continued, before Dutton got up to complain.

The Leader of the Opposition again demanded that Mr Jones answer the question but was told to sit down as Mr Dick had already told the Assistant Treasurer to stay on topic seconds before.

Deputy Foreign Minister Tim Watts shouted “well done Dutts” to Mr Dutton and he was immediately thrown out of the chamber.

Jones ultimately said the answer was corporation tax.

But the derailment of Question Time continued shortly thereafter when Mr. Jones was asked “whether the capital gains tax discount normally applicable to assets held within retirement is available for realized or unrealized gains under the new government supertax?”

He tried to dodge the question by arguing, “As an unlicensed financial adviser, I can’t give financial advice either… here or anywhere else.”

An exasperated Mr. Dutton interrupted on a point of order, which was really an excuse to stick his boot in Mr. Jones.

“I’ve been here 22 years, I thought I heard it all,” he said, before being scolded by Mr. Dick.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton was unimpressed by Jones’s mumbo-jumbo and cut him off from his seat.

The past two Question Times, held in the absence of the prime minister who is touring India, have been called some of the worst of all time by observers.

The opposition has relentlessly attacked the Albanese’s plan to cut tax breaks for Australians with superfunds of more than $3 million.

A poll showed that two-thirds of voters support the changes, which would tax windfall contributions at 30 percent for some 80,000 Australians instead of 15 percent.

Many questions have raised hypotheses about how the changes might affect various groups, recently focusing on Australians who own their business through their superannuation fund.

Dutton says Labor is pursuing a ‘socialist’ agenda with its pension changes and taking Australia to a ‘dark place’.

He accused the Albanese government of stealing cash from “wannabe Australians who have worked all their lives”.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers dismissed Dutton’s “ridiculous scare campaign” as “hyperventilating hyperbole” that made him worse than former Prime Minister Scott Morrison.