Our nation does need tax reform, but it doesn't need the kind of tax reform those opposite have prioritised and put forward. The tax package readjustment the Labor government has put forward, in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living Tax Cuts) Bill 2024, will see bigger tax cuts going to those that need them most. A median income earner in the electorate of Canning—and the median income in the electorate of Canning is fairly close to the national average—will now have $1,059 per year in extra income. This can be compared with a tax cut of just $255 under the previous government's plan. That is about a 315 per cent increase: 315 per cent extra income compared with what the coalition offered. Importantly, it is real cost-of-living relief. It equates to about five months worth of petrol for a car with a 37-litre tank, five weeks of groceries for a $200 weekly grocery shop or more than 12 months of an $85-a-month home internet and phone bill.
This is real cost-of-living relief, and it is relief that is very much needed. In the electorate of Canning, households who are renting—some 30 per cent of households—are paying more than 30 per cent of their household income in rent. There are 38 per cent of households renting that pay more than 30 per cent of their household income in rent. The median mortgage repayment is some $1,800 a month, and 13.1 per cent of households pay more than 30 per cent of their household income on paying their mortgage. If you look at this around the state of Western Australia as an example, it shows that this will make a very meaningful difference to Australians.
It is all very well for those opposite to talk about bracket creep, to talk about aspirational politics in terms of people's future incomes. But they seem to forget how far away the median income of working Australians actually is from those upper tax brackets, how far from fair what they offered up to Australia in the form of these stage 3 tax cuts really was.
If things need to be changed in the future, then that's what a good government should do, just as we have done in this case, when Australians are facing increased cost-of-living pressures and knew full well that they were getting a dud deal from those opposite in the tax package that they put forward. It is time for childcare workers, tradies, truckies, teachers, nurses, disability carers and healthcare workers to get the tax cut that they deserve.
