E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
AM AGENDA, SKY NEWS
WEDNESDAY, 10 MAY 2017
SUBJECTS: UNFAIR LIBERAL BUDGET, DEFICIT LEVY, BANK LEVY.
KIERAN GILBERT: Let’s get some more budget reaction, I’m joined by the Trade Spokesman for Labor now, Jason Clare. It looks like a Labor Budget in many respects, that’s the assessment.
CLARE: It’s like a bucket of prawns in the sun. Like most Liberal Budgets we’ve seen over the last few years when it first comes out it seems pretty good and then over the next few days it starts to smell. Like all Liberal Budgets you see here, if you’re well off – if you’re a millionaire – you get a tax cut, but if you’re an average Australian you’re going to pay more tax. A millionaire will end up getting a tax cut of over 16 grand a year, but for people on average incomes – someone on 65 grand a year – they’re going to have to pay an extra 300 odd bucks a year. That’s not a Labor Budget, that’s a Liberal Budget through and through.
GILBERT: But if you say an extra $300, but without the deficit levy those on $500,000 will be paying $12,000 additional for their deficit levy, sorry $2,500 therefore that’s progressive like our tax system.
CLARE: The deficit is ten times what they predicted it would be four years ago and they’re taking the deficit levy off. That’s just crazy, that doesn’t make any sense at all. How can it be with the deficit ten times higher than they predicted that they’re going to take that off, give millionaires a massive tax cut and yet slug poorer working people. All the politicians here at Parliament House, they get a tax cut but the people that they represent are going to have to pay more tax.
GILBERT: Sure, but when you say it hits poorer people, lower income earners, it is progressive like our system isn’t it? In the sense that the more you earn the more you pay as part of the levy, which was put in place initially to fund the NDIS, that first half a per cent increase by your former PM, Julia Gillard.
CLARE: We’ve made the point it’s a big decision to make here about whether you’re going to increase the cost of living for Australians right across the board. There are other choices the Government could make here by the way. Instead of increasing the Medicare levy, one option would be to dump their cuts for multinational companies taxes that they pay. Instead of a $50 billion tax cut for Australian companies, what they want to do is slug average Australians.
GILBERT: Labor did the same thing four years ago. So it’s a tough one to argue.
CLARE: Yes we did, but what we didn’t do is take a levy off millionaires, which is what they’re doing here today.
GILBERT: In terms of the banks, that’s going to go down pretty well that bank levy isn’t it? Not with the banks, they’re already talking about – apparently talk around the place that they might move very quickly to raise the mortgage rate. If they did they’d be even more on the nose than they are now, but this move inoculates the Government from the call for a Royal Commission.
CLARE: I don’t think that’s right. You ask most Aussies they’ll still want a Royal Commission. Asking the banks to pay more is not going to solve the problems that a Royal Commission will. All those people that have been ripped off by the banks won’t be happy that the banks are paying more, they want their problems fixed. That’s what a Royal Commission will do.
GILBERT: But this levy, you’ve backed it very quickly I don’t think I can remember a measure of this size being backed so quickly by an opposition. It was ticked, Bowen was out there very quick ‘yeah, we’ll back that’.
CLARE: We’re very happy to see action taken there, but as Bill Shorten said this morning to you, while they’re going to slug the banks with a tax here, they’re also going to give them a tax cut with their changes to corporate taxation. So don’t be fooled by this, what they take with one hand they give with the other. It’s no excuse for trying to give up on a Royal Commission. And this is an attempt by Malcolm Turnbull to try to encourage Australians to think a Royal Commission’s not necessary. You bet it is.
GILBERT: It sounds like – I’ve asked a few guests this morning including the Prime Minister and Mr Bowen – that does look like a super profits tax to me. A permanent one. No-one wants to call it that, but that’s what it is isn’t it?
CLARE: We’re backing it. What’s happening here is the Government’s been dragged kicking and screaming towards what Labor’s been calling for on banks, on education, on health, but they’re still not doing anywhere near enough. They’re still cutting schools, they’re still making university students pay more, they’re still not unfreezing the Medicare changes quick enough and they’re doing bugger all on housing affordability. It’s an attempt Kieran – let’s be pretty clear about it – it’s an attempt to try to get rid of those Tony Abbott nasties, but the big problem Malcolm Turnbull’s got here is it doesn’t get rid of his biggest problem and that’s Tony Abbott.
ENDS
MEDIA CONTACT: KORENA FLANAGAN 02 9790 2466
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
AM AGENDA, SKY NEWS
WEDNESDAY, 10 MAY 2017
SUBJECTS: UNFAIR LIBERAL BUDGET, DEFICIT LEVY, BANK LEVY.
KIERAN GILBERT: Let’s get some more budget reaction, I’m joined by the Trade Spokesman for Labor now, Jason Clare. It looks like a Labor Budget in many respects, that’s the assessment.
CLARE: It’s like a bucket of prawns in the sun. Like most Liberal Budgets we’ve seen over the last few years when it first comes out it seems pretty good and then over the next few days it starts to smell. Like all Liberal Budgets you see here, if you’re well off – if you’re a millionaire – you get a tax cut, but if you’re an average Australian you’re going to pay more tax. A millionaire will end up getting a tax cut of over 16 grand a year, but for people on average incomes – someone on 65 grand a year – they’re going to have to pay an extra 300 odd bucks a year. That’s not a Labor Budget, that’s a Liberal Budget through and through.
GILBERT: But if you say an extra $300, but without the deficit levy those on $500,000 will be paying $12,000 additional for their deficit levy, sorry $2,500 therefore that’s progressive like our tax system.
CLARE: The deficit is ten times what they predicted it would be four years ago and they’re taking the deficit levy off. That’s just crazy, that doesn’t make any sense at all. How can it be with the deficit ten times higher than they predicted that they’re going to take that off, give millionaires a massive tax cut and yet slug poorer working people. All the politicians here at Parliament House, they get a tax cut but the people that they represent are going to have to pay more tax.
GILBERT: Sure, but when you say it hits poorer people, lower income earners, it is progressive like our system isn’t it? In the sense that the more you earn the more you pay as part of the levy, which was put in place initially to fund the NDIS, that first half a per cent increase by your former PM, Julia Gillard.
CLARE: We’ve made the point it’s a big decision to make here about whether you’re going to increase the cost of living for Australians right across the board. There are other choices the Government could make here by the way. Instead of increasing the Medicare levy, one option would be to dump their cuts for multinational companies taxes that they pay. Instead of a $50 billion tax cut for Australian companies, what they want to do is slug average Australians.
GILBERT: Labor did the same thing four years ago. So it’s a tough one to argue.
CLARE: Yes we did, but what we didn’t do is take a levy off millionaires, which is what they’re doing here today.
GILBERT: In terms of the banks, that’s going to go down pretty well that bank levy isn’t it? Not with the banks, they’re already talking about – apparently talk around the place that they might move very quickly to raise the mortgage rate. If they did they’d be even more on the nose than they are now, but this move inoculates the Government from the call for a Royal Commission.
CLARE: I don’t think that’s right. You ask most Aussies they’ll still want a Royal Commission. Asking the banks to pay more is not going to solve the problems that a Royal Commission will. All those people that have been ripped off by the banks won’t be happy that the banks are paying more, they want their problems fixed. That’s what a Royal Commission will do.
GILBERT: But this levy, you’ve backed it very quickly I don’t think I can remember a measure of this size being backed so quickly by an opposition. It was ticked, Bowen was out there very quick ‘yeah, we’ll back that’.
CLARE: We’re very happy to see action taken there, but as Bill Shorten said this morning to you, while they’re going to slug the banks with a tax here, they’re also going to give them a tax cut with their changes to corporate taxation. So don’t be fooled by this, what they take with one hand they give with the other. It’s no excuse for trying to give up on a Royal Commission. And this is an attempt by Malcolm Turnbull to try to encourage Australians to think a Royal Commission’s not necessary. You bet it is.
GILBERT: It sounds like – I’ve asked a few guests this morning including the Prime Minister and Mr Bowen – that does look like a super profits tax to me. A permanent one. No-one wants to call it that, but that’s what it is isn’t it?
CLARE: We’re backing it. What’s happening here is the Government’s been dragged kicking and screaming towards what Labor’s been calling for on banks, on education, on health, but they’re still not doing anywhere near enough. They’re still cutting schools, they’re still making university students pay more, they’re still not unfreezing the Medicare changes quick enough and they’re doing bugger all on housing affordability. It’s an attempt Kieran – let’s be pretty clear about it – it’s an attempt to try to get rid of those Tony Abbott nasties, but the big problem Malcolm Turnbull’s got here is it doesn’t get rid of his biggest problem and that’s Tony Abbott.
ENDS
MEDIA CONTACT: KORENA FLANAGAN 0418 251 316
