Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Science and Water) Share this | Hansard source

First of all, I acknowledge the continuing contribution that Senator Murray makes to the taxation debate and, despite his blatant self-promotion, I will go to his website and download this interesting paper, which compares personal tax rates around the world!

I have to say that Labor have some problems with this proposal. We find it problematic that we are presented with a proposal like this without much consultation at all. This is the first time we have seen this. Our concern is that this kind of a process would perhaps drive up tax rates. The proposal seems to take all the money that was allocated to the restructuring of the tax scales at the top and put it into increasing the tax-free threshold, which I know is dear to Senator Murray’s heart but we are unable to support it at this stage. This is tinkering at the edges. Labor believe this should be a part of a much larger package; so, on that basis, we will not be supporting these amendments.