Opposition holding off on announcing response to stage 3 tax cuts change
The federal opposition won’t announce its position on the government’s reworked stage 3 tax cuts this week, as the shadow cabinet meets to discuss the policy today.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said he is not planning on making an announcement this week about whether the Coalition will oppose or support the tax cuts when they go before parliament.
“We’ll have an announcement in due course,” Dutton said from Perth before flying back to his flood-hit electorate in Queensland – which he said wasn’t impacting the timing of the opposition’s announcement.
“I wasn’t planning on making an announcement this week in any case.
“We’ve got a lot of work that we’ve done just to look at the forward estimates numbers, the medium-term and into the out years as well.”
He added there were question marks over the revamped policy that the opposition is weighing up before taking a position.
The original stage 3 tax cuts, introduced by then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and treasurer Scott Morrison in the 2018 budget, are already legislated, meaning the Albanese government’s reforms will need to go through parliament before coming into effect.
While the government has the numbers to pass the policy in the lower house, it will need the support of either the crossbench including the Greens – who have said they will push for further changes – or the opposition to get through the Senate.
Before the changes were announced, deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley said the opposition would “fight this legislation in the parliament” regardless of what the final policy looked like, before later saying the Coalition would assess the package.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese today challenged the opposition to support the package.
“The Coalition talk a lot about cost-of-living pressures, but they vote against all of them,” he said from Townsville.
He once again touted the benefits of the reworked tax cuts, saying they benefit average Australians.
“Twelve million Australians, low- and middle-income earners, are the big beneficiaries,” he said.
“We have targeted this fairly and squarely at middle Australia.
“But as well, we have made sure that everyone gets a tax cut so that those people earning under $45,000 a year are not left behind.”
What do the redesigned tax cuts mean for you?
The vast majority of Australian taxpayers will receive a larger tax cut under the Albanese government’s redesigned scheme.
Take, for example, Australians earning $40,000.
Under the old stage 3 plan, they would have received nothing. Under the revised plan, they will receive around $654 back on their return.
Take someone earning $60,000. They were scheduled to receive a tax cut of $375 under the old plan. Under the revised schedule, they’ll receive $1179.
