Malcolm Turnbull calls Bill Shorten a social-climbing sycophant, and more

Who’s a social-climbing sycophant who sucks up to billionaires, as well as being a parasite who wants to live in luxury at taxpayers’ expense? Opposition leader Bill Shorten, according to Malcolm Turnbull.

The Prime Minister, apparently tired of barbs about his own personal wealth, hammered former union leader Shorten in an unusually fiery Question Time today.

 Shorten had accused an “out of touch” Turnbull with punishing families and pensioners, while giving the business sector a handout, in an attack on a government proposal to change family payments and cut corporate tax.

Turnbull, a self-made millionaire who’s been under scrutiny for a $1.7 million donation he gave to the Liberal Party, had clearly had enough of Shorten’s barbs about his wealth, which have included calling Turnbull ‘Mr Harbourside Mansion’ because the former businessman lives in a multimillion-dollar house in Sydney’s exclusive Point Piper.

Turnbull accused Shorten of trying to fuel “politics of envy” despite having been “a great sycophant of billionaires” during his time as a union leader, who lapped up Cristal champagne at the Melbourne mansion of prominent businessman Dick Pratt.

 “He likes harbourside mansions, he’s yearning for one,” Turnbull accused a straight-faced Shorten. “He’s yearning to get into Kirribilli House. You know why –  because somebody else pays for it.”

 Shorten had no consistency and no integrity, Turnbull continued.

 “This sycophant, this simpering sycophant, blowing hard in the House of Representatives, sucking hard in the living rooms of Melbourne,” he said. “What a hypocrite.”

 The bill containing the welfare reforms, tax cuts and other reforms was introduced in parliament today. The government has promised it will deliver $5.5 billion in savings.

What do you think of the behaviour of our politicians?