Opposition Leader Bill Shorten gave Labor’s 2018 Budget Reply in the House of Reps on 10 May 2018. Key revenue-related points from his speech include:
- Labor will only support the Government’s personal income tax cuts starting 1 July 2018, but not the Government’s further tax cuts measures.
- Labor’s Tax Refund for Working Australians will increase the tax cuts currently being offered under the Government’s tax offset proposal.
- Labor’s first Budget would deliver “a bigger, better and fairer tax cut for 10 million working Australians. Almost double in fact what the Government offered [in its 2018 Budget]”.
- “Everyone earning less than $125,000 a year will receive a bigger tax cut under Labor compared to the Liberals. More than four million people will be better off by $398 a year compared to the Liberals.”
- “A Shorten Labor Government will deliver bigger tax cuts from 1 July 2019” (whereas the Governments ‘stage 1’ cuts would commence one year earlier, starting 1 July 2018).
- Labor is “committed to a tax cut for every Australian small business, for 93% of all businesses”.
- Labor would provide tax incentives for companies who invest in Australia.
There doesn’t seem to be any more detail than in the Budget Reply speech. And, it seems that the ‘double the Government’s cuts’ rhetoric is limited to only stage 1 of the Government’s 3 stage measure (and it’s stages 2 & 3 that effect the biggest cuts).
[Labor website: Budget Reply Speech; LTN 89, 11/5/18; FJM; Tax Month May 2018]
Study Questions (answers available)
- Does Labor promise individuals the same level of tax cuts as the Government?
- Does Labor promise its tax cuts from the same year as the Government?
- When these tax cuts arrive, will it be 5 million people who will be better off?
