Question Time: Scott Morrison blasts 'muppets' after budget

Treasurer Scott Morrison has blasted the Opposition as “muppets” during a heated exchange in the first Question Time since he delivered the 2018 budget.

Morrison was repeatedly pressed by Labor about the total cost of corporate tax cuts over ten years, and if the figure exceeded $100 billion.

At one stage Speaker Tony Smith asked Liberal MP Paul Fletcher to stop interjecting, and Tanya Plibersek had to start her question to Morrison again.

The debate reached a crescendo when the Treasurer addressed the opposition as “you muppets”.

The comment was ruled unparliamentary.

The first 20 minutes of Question Time was dominated by arguments over corporate tax.

The Treasurer repeatedly dodged specifics in his responses.

A seemingly never-ending wave of Dorothy Dixers allowed Morrison, full of confidence after his budget speech, to preach the merits of the 2018 Federal Budget as Labor MPs became increasingly frustrated.

What we learned

The total cost of unlegislated corporate tax cuts was $45.4 billion, an exasperated Treasurer Scott Morrison told Labor MPs after they peppered him and the prime minister with questions.

What the government wanted to spin

The opposition would have us believe that Australia has grown simply because the global economy has. We have made our own luck. Australians have made their own luck.

What Labor was pushing

Corporate tax cuts and how much they will cost.

They said what?

"Those out there, the almond latte set, they do not think it matters. They just eat their smashed avocados and say it does not happen." - the treasurer chides critics of his tax cuts that give lower-income Australians about $500 a year.

"The minister for urban infrastructure (Paul Fletcher) was interjecting and in a particularly piercing tone." - Speaker Tony Smith.