Coalition budget blasted: ‘Un-costed nonsense’
The opposition’s economic vision for Australia, which includes restricting welfare for foreigners and slashing migration, has been slammed as One Nation-lite.
Source: Anglus Taylor
Coalition leader Angus Taylor has been slammed for “un-costed nonsense” after unveiling a plan for one of the biggest cuts to migration in Australia’s history and a $22 billion tax overhaul.
In his first budget reply speech on Thursday night, Taylor unveiled a raft of economic policies aimed at winning back voter support and countering the rise of One Nation.
The Coalition would tackle bracket creep in the tax system, restrict welfare to Australian citizens only and slash immigration if elected.
Taylor also vowed to deport 70,000 “illegal overstayers”.
He outlined a plan to index tax brackets in line with inflation, returning hundreds of dollars in tax cuts to workers.
The two lowest brackets — covering people earning between $18,201 and $135,000 — would be indexed from 2028-29, Taylor said.
This would deliver tax relief of about $250 in the first year and more than $1000 in the fourth, the Coalition forecasts.
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The top two tax brackets would also be indexed from the 2031-32 financial year.
“This is generational tax reform. It’s fair, simple, and honest. It will back Australians to work hard, take risks, and invest in their future. It will force government to respect your money,” Taylor told parliament on Thursday night.
Taylor also promised to strip welfare payments from permanent residents, including access to JobSeeker and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, claiming the move would save billions of dollars.
The reforms would be grandfathered, Taylor said after his speech, so current permanent residents wouldn’t be left worse-off.
“We’re not taking anything away from anyone,” he told ABC TV.
Under a broader crackdown on migration, Australia’s intake of foreigners would be tied to the number of homes built every year.
“This much I promise: The Coalition will deliver one of the biggest cuts to immigration in Australian history,” Taylor said, without providing detailed figures for his migration targets.
One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce said Taylor was effectively reading off his party’s script and said he’d never seen the Coalition pushed further to the right on immigration.
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“I think the Australian people … feel uncomfortable about where [migration’s] off to, and they’re demanding of governments of all ilks to give them a sense of security,” Joyce told the ABC.
Housing Minister Clare O’Neil blasted the speech, claiming Australian families were looking for answers to the cost of living and housing supply.
“Instead of real answers to these problems, what they got was un-costed nonsense that won’t build a single home or pay a single bill,” she said at Parliament House.
“You can’t out One Nation, One Nation … if people like what Pauline Hanson is putting down, they’re going to vote for them, not you.”
Migrant advocates responded angrily to Taylor’s speech, accusing him of attempting to “chase votes with dog whistles, fear and division”.
“Taylor’s comments tonight are inflammatory and desperate,” Asylum Seeker Resource Centre deputy chief executive Jana Favero said.
“The fact that he feels the need to dog-whistle about mass deportations of so-called ‘overstayers’, many of whom are actually trapped in a massively blown-out court and tribunal system created through years of Coalition underfunding, shows they are far more interested in stoking fear than delivering serious policy solutions.”
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said last weekend’s Farrer by-election result was leading the Coalition “to finally see the light” and copy her party’s policies.
“While they’ve been telling everyone that One Nation has no policies, they’ve been reading them very carefully because they’re desperate for some good ideas,” she said.
“The cosy two-party system protecting two tired, clueless and unpopular major parties is on borrowed time no matter how much they wish it was otherwise.”
Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi slammed the Coalition, accusing it of pandering to One Nation’s politics.
“It is pathetic that the Liberals are willing to sink so low trying to out-racist One Nation,” she said.
“Newsflash for Angus Taylor, migrants are entitled to the same safety net as everyone else.”
-with AAP
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