Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Hansard source

As much as you do not wish to wear the record, you did the time so now you have got to pay the price. Low-income families, single people and childless couples lost ground in the last decade. Have a look at these changes. These will improve participation. Courtesy of the wisdom of our Prime Minister and our Treasurer, 3.4 million people will benefit from change to the low-income tax offset. Eligible taxpayers receiving the senior Australian tax offset will gain increases in the threshold by the consequential increases of the low-income tax offset. According to recent information from the Australian Tax Office, 600,000 Australians will benefit from this. In addition we have Labor advancing further on the reform front. Not content to do just this, Labor is going to decrease the number of tax rates from four to three. It is going to lift the effective tax rate threshold of $20,000.

Tax cuts are part of a balanced package and we cannot expect the Reserve Bank of Australia to take all the load. Labor have a five-point plan and we are not asking the low paid to bear the burden. We are going to do good things in superannuation, in these tax cuts and in the bargaining system, and you are seeing a real dose of fiscal discipline—something which would have given nightmares to the former cabinet of the opposition when they were in government.

There is one thing about these tax cuts: they do help to compensate for inflation. Over the course of the lost 11 years of tinkering by the now opposition, the proportion of tax taken from Australians by the government increased from 22 per cent plus to 25 per cent plus and it is still at 24.7 per cent. This is a coalition opposition who made a hallmark of taking money from people and spending it on their particular priorities. What we see now is a reforming Labor government that is consistent with the best traditions of Labor, ensuring that the low paid and the middle-income earners receive their fair cut. I hope—and indeed I believe—that these tax cuts are the start of a package to deal with the legacy of inflation, the runaway foreign debt and the crippling fall in productivity. When it comes to the big issues of the Australian economy you would want to leave it to Labor, because the last 11 years of the coalition have been a sorry disappointment.

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