The government must lead by example and politicians should take “a massive cut” on their own entitlements if the budget needs to find savings or additional revenue, industrial relations commentator and columnist Grace Collier told the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday night.

Ms Collier was speaking about the Coalition’s consideration of raising the goods and services tax to 15 per cent.

On Monday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s said he was not yet convinced that hiking the GST was a good idea, a statement that was hotly debated on the panel.

• Philip Ruddock set to retire
• Premier’s plea on asylum seekers
• Malcolm Turnbull unconvinced on GST hike

Despite several state and territory leaders backing the proposed GST hike, Mr Turnbull said that if the government pushed ahead with the plans, it would also cut personal income tax instead of handing the revenue to the states to plough into education and health.

“I’ve worked with many people in and out of the public sector … I know lots and lots of people, I work in the business sector and here is massive government waste,” Ms Collier said.

“Everywhere you look there is just fat to be cut. We have so much fat we could start our own obesity clinic.”

The audience erupted into laughter.

Grace Collier: “Everywhere you look there is just fat to be cut.” Photo: ABC

“There is so much government waste and nobody wants to talk about spending, but what we would like to see is politicians leading from the front,” Ms Collier continued.

“I used to work in cost-cutting and we used to handle distressed businesses that were on the verge of bankruptcy and the first thing that management would do is stand up and say ‘we are taking a 10 per cent cut to our salaries and everybody else has to take a cut, too’.

“You have to lead by example. I would like to see the politicians taking a massive cut on their own entitlements, not doing any more of these silly overseas tours, which we know are just a rort, and leading by example.

“They can tighten their belts, give away their conditions and then ask the rest of us to do so with a little bit of moral authority.”

Fairfax Media radio broadcaster Neil Mitchell said the PM promised economic vision.

I don’t think he has the political will to take it on … I don’t think he is interested in tax reform, just winning the next election,” Mr Mitchell said.

“If he wins that anything can happen, perhaps even a GST.”

The asylum debate

Last Wednesday the High Court of Australia threw out a challenge to the Australian Government’s immigration detention centre on Nauru.

The case was launched by a Bangladeshi detainee on Nauru who was brought to Australia for treatment and later gave birth to her daughter in Brisbane.

Now the government is set to return a group of 260 asylum seekers – including 37 babies and 54 children – to the detention island of Nauru.

State and territory leaders, religious institutions and even the United Nations urged the government to let them stay.

Q&A host Tony Jones listens to panellist Neil Mitchell. Photo: ABC

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews even wrote an open letter to Mr Turnbull saying sending them back would “needlessly expose them to physical and emotional  trauma”.

Mr Mitchell said this was just a plain and simple “stunt” made by Mr Andrews.

“I don’t think there is an option other than to send them back. It’s horrible, but I can’t see an option,” Mr Mitchell said.

But ACTU Secretary Dave Oliver said he looked at this issue through ‘father’s eyes’.

“As a father I ask myself this question and I appreciate it is a complex issue and I agree we need to look at a regional solution, but I ask myself this question ‘could I take the hand of a child and lead him up a gang plank or put him on a plane to send them back to Nauru?’ And I couldn’t, and I couldn’t expect anyone else to do that,” Mr Oliver said.

“Neil, I don’t know. Are you prepared to actually take the hand of a child, to put them on the plane, to send them back to Nauru, because I cannot comprehend that for a minute.”

Fellow panellist, rural Health Minister Fiona Nash, added: “What we have done with the policies that we’ve got and I’m pleased that Catherine [Shadow Health Minister Catherine King] supports us in those is that we have now a situation where we have put the people smugglers out of business,” Ms Nash said.

Sunday penalty rates

The debate about whether to cut Sunday penalty rates was also on the agenda. Ms King said to go ahead with the government’s proposal was “taking money off low-paid workers”.

“It is not something we can support,” she said. “These are workers not just in the hospitality sector, they are our nurses, they are people in our emergency services who are working at 4am in the morning sometimes.”

Host Tony Jones reminded Ms King that these sectors would be excluded.

“So where do you draw the line?” Ms King replied. “Who is more valued than others in terms of the wages that they get?”

Mr Mitchell said a fair and negotiated bargain must be met by both employers and employees.

“In holiday areas they closed on Boxing Day because they couldn’t afford the penalty rates. The pub wasn’t open on Christmas Day because they couldn’t afford the penalty rates,” he said.

“You don’t want to rip off the pub, of course, but if you have the small business glowing, thriving, you need that co-operation, we are talking about a fair wage, and a seven-day industry, well, 24-hours, seven-days-a-week world, I think you have to accept there has to be a negotiated situation where they get fair wages, a fair deal, but you can still grow business.”