Doorstop, Press Gallery
5 February 2024
JANE HUME: Do you know it was only two weeks ago today that the Prime Minister looked Australians in the eye and said that he had no plans to change stage three tax cuts. Two weeks. Then it was just the very next day that he backflips on that promise and demonstrated that this Government has not only no appetite for reform of our tax system that would make our economy more productive that would inject aspiration back into our growth. Not only does he have no appetite for tax reform, that is the Government he is leading, but he has no appetite for reform that he doesn't even have to cost, that's already there. That's already legislated. What a failure of leadership we've seen not just in that appetite, but in integrity. He lied to the Australian people. He lied to the Australian people when he said that his New Year's resolution in 2023 was to address the cost of living. Because he only asked Treasury to find solutions to the Cost of Living crisis in December 2023 and he lied to the Australian people during the election campaign when he said there'd be no changes to the stage three tax cuts. He has lied over 100 times since the election, when he said that they had no plans to change the stage three tax cuts. Well, how on earth can we expect to trust this Prime Minister ever again? He said that his word was his bond when really his word is worth nothing. He told David Speers yesterday he's an honest man and quite frankly, I think this is a deluded man, if you think that Australians are going to fall for that.
JOURNALIST: The polls showed they have, I mean, positive signs in the Newspoll today that people want these changes.
JANE HUME: Of course people want a tax cut. They're doing it tough, you know, real disposable incomes have gone back by 8.7% under this Government just in the last nearly two years. 8.7%. So for the average Australian, that probably means you're earning about $1,000 less. You are $8,000 poorer today than you were less than two years ago. So if somebody offers you even a paltry $15 a week, which is the maximum tax cut that anyone will get under the revised stage three, of course, you're going to take it. Will you thank the Prime Minister for it? Will you ever trust him again? Will you accept his word on negative gearing, on capital gains, on taxing the family home? Of course not. Anthony Albanese has tried to buy his integrity for $15. I don't think the Australian public will support that.
JOURNALIST: Polling shows that most Aussies don't care about the broken promise now. Should you let it go too?
JANE HUME: I think Australians do care about broken promises. They've said that they would like the tax cut, of course they want a tax cut. When you're doing it tough, you reach for any assistance that you can get. But will they be bought? Will they have the integrity sold to them for $15 a week? I don't think so and you know, the polls today suggest just as much. Labor will release their internal polling and tell you what you want to hear. But I wonder whether they didn't release internal polling about the Prime Minister's integrity. Do they ask him questions about that? I doubt it.
JOURNALIST: Will you ensure that Australians get these extra $15 a week?
JANE HUME: Well we got the legislation yesterday and of course, as you would expect, we'll take it through our normal party work processes that would be what we would do with any other piece of legislation. But what I can tell you is that we were a Government that reformed tax. We were a reforming Government. We wanted to make taxes lower, simpler, and fairer.
JOURNALIST: This will make taxes lower for most Australians so why wouldn't you support it?
JANE HUME: We will always be a party of lower taxes, that I can assure you. We will always be the party of lower taxes. We want people to have more of their own money to spend. Because quite frankly, if you don't have more of your own money to spend, you are sucking the aspiration out of society. But the problem here is, when you decide that bracket creep is okay, which clearly Anthony Albanese has done, he said he's comfortable with bracket creep. In fact, he's going to make $28 billion with more bracket creep. He's very comfortable with that. When you keep bracket creep in your tax system, you are robbing your future prosperity, then you might be on $140,000 today and appreciate a tax cut. Of course you would, you'd be doing it really tough, but name me somebody that's on $140,000 today that wouldn't like to earn 150 in the next few years or 160 or 180. If you want to have that aspirational component of the economy, then you've got to make sure that people have the opportunity to earn more and keep more of their own money, reduce the profit rate which is so inefficient and sucks aspiration and productivity out of our society.