Topics: Legislating tax cuts.
24/06/2019
6:40AM
David Koch: Acting Treasurer and Trade Minister Simon Birmingham joins me now. Minister thanks for your time, can Labor deny voters the tax cuts that were promised at the election? You’ve got a pretty clear mandate don’t you?
Simon Birmingham: Look, today is the day where Anthony Albanese needs to accept the election result, accept the fact that the Liberal Party, the National Party, Scott Morrison, took to this election tax cuts for hardworking Australians and commit to voting for them. Because anything less and Anthony Albanese is just going to look like Bill Shorten in a different suit. In the end the election was a big battle about having lower taxes under Scott Morrison or higher taxes under the Labor Party. The people spoke clearly five weeks ago and it’s amazing the Labor Party is still procrastinating about giving this tax relief.
David Koch: What do you say to a couple of the Labor Party members who are saying, look that’s all very well but the economy is showing signs of being sluggish, we can’t afford the tax cuts we can’t afford to pay for them?
Simon Birmingham: Australia can’t afford not to have these tax cuts at this time for hard working families who are going to get $1080 extra in their pockets this year as a result of this tax relief. That’s critical to them, but also of course for our economy overall. You had business leaders, economists, others all clearly indicating they believe this tax relief is essential to make sure our economy can see through the global headwinds of trade wars and other battles that are happening at present. So it is essential that we see the extra stimulus that tax relief can provide both for families and for viewers out there, it’s essential that they get recognition for their hard work and get to keep a bit more of what they go out and work for each and every day.
David Koch: How are you feeling about the economy over the next year or two? We’ve got the Reserve Bank cutting official interest rates to try and build employment and saying hey inflation’s low but also challenging government to spend more on infrastructure to do it’s bit?
Simon Birmingham: The economic fundamentals for Australia’s economy are quite strong and we see strong employment and low inflation and Prime Minister Morrison will today give a key economic speech to the West Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and in that he’ll outline the importance of these tax cuts but indeed the global challenges we face, the US China trade war, other global economic tensions such as Brexit. These things are sort of own goals by other parts of the world that are suppressing global economic growth and we really hope they come to an end because with our economic fundamentals here in Australia that could provide for better jobs growth, better wages growth, but we do need to say this tax relief passed and supported and it needs the Labor Party to end any doubt today.
David Koch: Yes it will be an interesting challenge for the Labor Party today. Thanks for joining us. Appreciate it.
Ends.