Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister fronted the National Press Club last week and gave the most pathetic response to a question about repealing the obscene stage 3 tax cuts. He said: 'We tried to amend them out. We weren't successful. They were legislated, and we made a decision to "stand by that legislation rather than relitigate it."'

Well, how far the once great Australian Labor Party has fallen! The stage 3 tax cuts that the Labor Party now supports were designed by Scott Morrison, introduced by Scott Morrison and confirmed by Scott Morrison as Prime Minister. They will give billionaires, CEOs and politicians a $9,000-a-year bonus and they will give people on the minimum wage absolutely nothing. Over the next decade, these obscene tax cuts for the top end will strip $244 billion out of the budget and put three quarters of that money into the pockets and wallets of the highest income earners in the country. With $244 billion you could put dental and mental health into Medicare, build affordable housing and make child care free.

These obscene tax cuts will obliterate Australia's progressive tax system. They are exactly the kind of policy that the Labor Party was formed to oppose. They should be repealed, and yet here is Mr Albanese and his colleagues in this place standing by them. Well, if the Labor Party is standing by these tax cuts, they are Labor's tax cuts. The stage 3 tax cuts for the top end are now the Labor Party's tax cuts.