‘We didn’t change our position’: Albanese defends decision to back income tax cuts

Extract from The Guardian

Australian politics

Labor leader lashes out at Coalition and media after party votes to pass legislation it deemed fiscally irresponsible

Amy Remeikis

@amyremeikis

Fri 5 Jul 2019 14.20 AEST First published on Fri 5 Jul 2019 14.13 AEST

Anthony Albanese has justified Labor’s support of the Coalition’s income tax cuts saying, ‘the economy is flatlining, we need to get money into the hands of workers’. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Anthony Albanese has defended Labor’s position on the government’s tax legislation as entirely consistent, despite the party voting to pass the legislation, including elements it labelled economically irresponsible.
After amendments to delay the stage three 30% flat tax rate from 2024 and bring forward already legislated tax cuts failed, Labor voted to pass the government’s entire $158bn tax package, which already had the necessary numbers from the crossbench.
The government heralded the passage of the entire package as a win, despite Labor’s opposition, while Albanese has defended Labor’s attempt to walk both sides of the debate.
“You’ve got to follow the play,” he said on Friday.
“People here shouldn’t be confused if you actually follow politics, because what we always said was that stage one was something we always supported. It was our policy before the election.

“We also said the economy is flatlining. We need to get more money into the hands of workers right now.

“That’s why we were arguing to bring forward stage two. The only people who were threatening to block any tax cut to Australian workers was the Coalition. Go back, we didn’t change our position.
“Go back and see if you can find something from me saying that that should happen. The only people who are threatening to block any tax cut were government ministers who were saying they would block a tax cut today because of something that they wanted to happen in 2025.
“Now the truth is that all political parties will go to the next election in three years’ time with new economic policies, new social policies, new environmental policy.”
Albanese rejected claims from the government it had served as a block for the tax cuts, arguing it was the Coalition which voted against Labor’s amendment to bring future slated cuts, forward.

"What’s extraordinary about the debate is that Pauline Hanson seems to understand more about economics than the government"

Anthony Albanese

“We did not stand in front of tax cuts, that’s just not true,” he said.
“And the fourth estate frankly have to do a little bit better at examining what’s happening rather than what editors sitting in an office somewhere thinking is happening because we never did that.”
“What’s extraordinary about the debate here is that Pauline Hanson seems to understand more about economics than the government or frankly some of the people in this gallery. Because she was saying how do you pay for the $19bn because it’s got to be paid for with something.”

The passage of the 2024 $95bn flat tax rate has left social stakeholders nervous about future funding cuts. The Australian Council of Social Services head, Cassandra Goldie, cautioned the government from reneging on its promise, most recently drawn out of Scott Morrison on Thursday during question time, to make no cuts to pay for the tax package.
“While the crossbench is right to be concerned about housing affordability and energy costs for people on low incomes, by passing the government’s entire $150bn tax package the parliament is risking the future of funding for essential services and infrastructure, including social housing and homelessness and health, education and social security,” Goldie said.

“We note that Labor, the Greens and much of the crossbench – including Senator Lambie and Centre Alliance, all expressed concern about the impact of the stage three tax cuts on the budget and essential services and warned that public spending should not be cut to pay for them.”