The Labor Party has today confirmed that they will slug Australian taxpayers with $387 billion in additional taxes, putting a dead weight on our economy and putting the future economic security of Australian families at risk.
Their policy decisions actually see Labor's tax take at 25.9% as a share of the economy by the end of the decade (2029-30) - the highest level in Australia, ever.
Labor are hiding what the impact of their higher taxes will be on the economy, jobs, property values, and the cost of rents. Labor cannot be trusted.
It was clearly an afterthought, because Labor were embarrassed when confronted with the reality of how much more tax they were raising.
So they imposed a modelling assumption on their costings. But they were hesitant to call it a cap knowing full well they will break it.
The Labor Party have not outlined a plan to provide income tax relief, just a 'trust us' we will cut taxes.
Does anyone really believe that by the time we get to 2022-23 that Labor wouldn't have spent all that money and more?
In contrast we have put a speed limit on taxes and are responsibly reducing spending as a share of GDP by better targeting government expenditure.
Labor's track record on economic and budget management is clear for everyone to see. During their last term in office, Labor 'gifted' hard-working Australians with a credit card hangover of $240 billion.
Labor has not properly accounted for a number of key very expensive promises they have made;
- Their promise to increase the foreign aid budget - from their first budget to 0.5% of GNI which would cost between $68 and $82bn over the next decade depending on the rate of implementation
- their promise to increase the refugee intake to 32,000 per year which would cost $6.2bn over the next decade
- their promise to increase science spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 which would cost about $36bn over the next decade
- their promise to increase Newstart allowance - which would cost about $39 billion over the next decade
Labor have also promised to increase funding for hospitals to the 50-50 share of growth funding with the States and lifting the cap, but they're not putting any money in the costings for it. If all states and territories were to move to a 13% growth rate, it would cost an additional $33.7 billion over the next decade, over and above what has already been agreed by 6 of the 8 states and territories over the course of the next agreement (2020-21 to 2024-25).
In contrast, the independent Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2019 confirmed the integrity of our Budget delivered on 2 April 2019 and verified that the Budget is back in the black and on track for surpluses building to a total of $45 billion over the next four years and increasing to 1 per cent as a share of GDP over the medium term.
We have a proven track record to returning Budgets back to surplus.
Labor have not delivered a Budget surplus since 1989.
Labor has a track record of reckless spending based on revenue they think they can raise, when in reality, as we learned with the mining tax, their taxes actually don't raise as much as they think they will.
After confirming they would impose $387 billion in higher taxes, Labor has failed to detail the detrimental economic impact these taxes will have.
How many retirees will be forced onto the pension as a result of Labor's retiree tax? How much less super will Australians be retiring on given Labor's higher taxes on super? How much will the value of homes fall and rents increase because of Labor's housing tax? How many Australians will lose their job and how much will their wages fall as a consequence of Labor's $387 billion in new taxes weakening the economy.
This is not the time to go back to Labor's discredited ways of the past, which when they were last in Government delivered a weakening economy, rising unemployment and a rapidly deteriorating Budget position.
