Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick has warned that the minor party may not back the Morrison government on its personal income tax cuts package before federal parliament resumes and has made a swathe of demands upon which Centre Alliance support is conditional.
Conservative Party leader Cory Bernardi has backed the Coalition's tax reform plan and is urging the government to go even further with its tax cuts.
The Australian reports, the Morrison government wants to push through its flagship $158 billion income tax cuts package as a priority when the 46th parliament convenes on July 2. But Senator Patrick, who with colleague Stirling Griff controls two crucial Senate votes, remains coy.
Centre Alliance and One Nation senators have demanded government intervention to reduce high electricity and gas prices in return for their support of the income tax cuts package, and Senator Patrick now says he also wants pensioner assistance as a condition.
Senator Bernardi says it is government intervention, in the form of renewable subsidies, that has distorted the energy market, pushing prices up and the only way to improve the situation is for those subsidies to be removed and red tape removed so that market certainty can be restored.
If Labor and the Greens oppose the income tax cuts package, which Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has repeatedly said would not be split, the government will have to win over four of six crossbenchers to pass its bill.
Senator Bernardi has told Chris Kenny on Sky News, there is a simply solution to high power prices which the Conservative Party proposed last year.
