Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has shrugged off criticism over not means testing tax cuts which were unveiled by Treasurer Jim Chalmers in Tuesday night’s budget.
Albanese has been heavily criticised for giving rich Australians a break with the cuts, with people such as Senator Jacqui Lambie taking aim at the “lazy” government.
On Wednesday, Albanese was quizzed over the cuts by Sunrise hosts Nat Barr and Matt Shirvington.
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“A lot of people are thinking ‘Hang on, I know proportionately lower income earners will get more money (but) why not cut it off at $300,000, $400,000, $500,000 or $1 million dollars?’ Could you not have put that money into funding other things?” Barr asked.
“It’s the way the tax system works,” Albanese replied.
“You can’t have tax cuts for a rate that kicks in, then somehow stops by lowering the tax rate at that first rate.
“You are deliberately and consciously giving a tax cut to every Australian taxpayer but proportionately, of course, it makes a bigger difference for people who are low and middle-income earners.
“That is precisely what we’ve done.”
Albanese claimed the tax cuts would mean Aussies will end up with “$2500 extra in their pockets”, while also claiming “real wages are increasing” and “inflation is down to the lower half of the Reserve Bank band”.
“That’s been the $95 billion of savings that we’ve made, the $180 billion improvement to the bottom line, the $207 billion improvement to the bottom line we’ve made going forward … as well to have that investment in every child through our better and fairer schools plan,” the PM said.
“The support for childcare, that is there with the abolition of the activity test and the three-day childcare guarantee. Free TAFE that we will continue to rollout as well.
“We know that energy bill relief has been necessary because of the global spike that’s been there in the energy prices.
“We provided $300 and another $300, both of which were opposed by the Coalition. What we’ve done is extend that relief through to the end of the year with another $150.
“When you look at the combination of measures that we have put in place we have done what we can, while providing responsible economic policy to make sure that it is affordable.
“We would like to do more, of course, (but) what we’ve done is make sure we have that balancing act of getting inflation down while providing cost-of-living relief.”
Albanese also shrugged off criticism from Liberal Senator Jane Hume, who claimed it was a “budget for five weeks” — insinuating it was just full of sweeteners ahead of an upcoming federal election.
“This year is a budget that sets Australia up. It provides for cost-of-living relief in the form of tax cuts, building on the tax cuts that came in this year, but also energy bill relief, cheaper medicines, free TAFE going forward,” Albanese said.
“Comprehensive plans to strengthen Medicare through our tripling of the bulk-billing incentive, additional urgent care clinics.
“The Gonski reforms that were talked about for so long, 15 years, now, we’ve delivered it, and the funding is there in this budget as well as making more things here in Australia, more manufacturing, more jobs.
“Australia is turning the corner due to the hard work that Australians have done. We’ve got inflation going down. We’ve got real wages going up. We’ve got employment growth with 1.1 million jobs.
“We have tax cuts for every Australian so that people can earn more and keep more of what they earn.
“(Opposition leader) Peter Dutton has a $600 billion nuclear plan that will be paid for by cuts to education and health. He supports cutting everything about your taxes.”
