Anthony Albanese has appeared to rule out further changes to Labor’s tax package such as taking more off high-income earners in order to win cross-bench support.
On Sunday the prime minister said he was “very confident” of the new plan passing parliament, even as the Greens called to raise the tax-free threshold and senator David Pocock said more should be spent on income support.
In an interview with Sky News, Albanese noted that the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, “wouldn’t rule out him voting for it” – a further sign of the Liberals backtracking from earlier suggestions they would oppose and could attempt to repeal the cuts.
Labor’s new tax cuts would give back $359bn over 10 years, delivering bigger savings to all taxpayers earning less than $146,486 and doubling tax relief for those on the average income.
The plan extends tax cuts to those earning between $18,200 and $45,000 who were due to miss out on the stage-three cuts legislated to take effect in July.
The Greens are calling for greater support for low income earners by raising the tax-free threshold of $18,200, and have also complained that those earning more than $190,000 still receive a $4,500 tax cut.
Asked if the government could make changes to the package, such as taking more off high-income earners, Albanese told Sky News: “No, this is our plan.”
“This is our plan. We will put it to the parliament.”
Albanese said the government is “determined to argue our case” that the new package is superior to the Morrison government’s stage-three plan “which leaves a whole lot of people behind”.
“All those people, the part-time workers, the renters, the people earning under $45,000, [it] leaves them behind and gives them nothing,” he said.
“For average working-class people earning $73,000, that plan is inadequate. We’ll give them double the tax cut.”
The new package halves the benefit to people earning $190,000 or more by giving them tax cuts of $4,500, down from $9,000.
Asked about the fact the tax cut package gives back $28bn less to taxpayers over 10 years than stage three, Albanese replied that “what’s relevant” is its cost over four years when its fiscal effects “are the same”.
Albanese downplayed the significance of “the idea that bracket creep doesn’t get dealt with in 10 years’ time”, arguing it was inappropriate to assess economic conditions so far in advance.
Asked why Australians would be waiting until July for cost-of-living relief, Albanese noted a range of measures the government was already rolling out and cited his comments on Thursday that “this wasn’t the beginning of our cost-of-living relief and it won’t be the end either”.
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“We’ll continue to look at further measures that we can undertake.”
Despite previously vowing to “fight” the new tax package, the deputy Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, said on Sunday that the Coalition has “got to go through the fine print on this, because you can’t trust anything this government says”.
Ley told Sky News it was “very relevant” if Labor is required to do “any dirty deal” with the Greens to pass the package.
“We don’t know what this legislation is going to look like. Will it be one bill that repeals stage three, and a separate bill with new measures?”
“Will it be something altogether different? And the prime minister is saying two things about, well, he won’t trade with the Greens, but then he kind of left it open that he might,” Ley said.
“So we can’t forecast. It’s definitionally impossible for us to say what we might do with the piece of legislation that we haven’t even seen.”
Ley accused Labor of being “sneaky” for proposing raising $28bn more over 10 years, despite the fact that figure was disclosed in Treasury advice released by the government. She labelled the package a “lifetime tax on aspiration”.
Ley said the tax cut package won’t come into effect “for another 155 days” but “people need help now”.
“Smart economic policy demands that you as the prime minister and government respond to what is happening, you don’t just go missing in action and you certainly don’t bring measures forward that as you correctly identified … aren’t really going to help.”
