Topics: National Accounts data, superannuation changes, Labor’s broken promises, energy discounts for pensioners

E&OE

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well earlier today we've seen the new national accounts data coming out and what we see in that data is a slowing economy and rising inflation and in particular, we're seeing enormous pressures now on Australian households. They are pulling back on their savings rates in order to be able to make ends meet and we're seeing three pressures in particular that I want to highlight that comes out of this data. The first, of course, is one we know well, which is inflationary pressures, inflation running at almost eight per cent. But second, we're seeing very strong growth in the mortgage payments that Australians are having to pay, as we see interest rates rising and these are putting great pressures on many Australian households with a mortgage. The third very clear pressure that's come from this data is on taxation and we've seen an increase in tax payments from Australian households of over seven per cent. Over seven per cent in the last quarter, and the combined impact of rising inflation, rising interest rates and rising taxation is a real battle for so many Australian households. A real battle that they're going to be grappling with for many, many months for a long time yet. Now, the government has promised that they're going to try to find some kind of way to relieve some of these pressures. But the reality is we're seeing no relief of these pressures at all and, in fact, interest rates continue to go up, the expectation is they will continue to go up. We've seen an extra $114 billion of spending from the government in the last budget, stimulating the economy and putting extra pressures on inflation and interest rates. And despite the fact that Australians are paying sharply more tax in the last quarter, we've heard just today the government wants to tax Australians more. Now make no mistake about it, Labor's 2019 big taxing agenda is back. It’s back. This is a government that has laid out yesterday a long menu, a smorgasbord of options for the taxes that it has opened to it to impose on Australian households. The Prime Minister and Treasurer couldn't agree today on whether or not they wanted to tax the family home. But the one thing we know about their tax promises is that they haven't kept them the past and we've seen that with superannuation taxes within a year of making a cast iron pre-election commitment because they wouldn't put extra taxes on superannuation. They're walking away from that promise for Australians. We see in that smorgasbord negative gearing, work expenses, and a long list of other tax options that this government no doubt would like to impose on Australians to deal with their spending habits. $114 billion of additional on budget spending and the last budget and $45 billion dollars of off budget spending that we’ve opposed in recent months being pushed through the Parliament. We need an Australian Government that is focused on the priorities of the Australian people and the top priority right now is helping Australian households and businesses to make ends meet. That is clearly not the priority of this government. Happy to take questions.

REPORTER:

You and the Opposition Leader haven’t quite agreed either on what will happen if you won the next election, to this tax change. What do you want to see?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, can I just emphasise here that the focus here of Labor's policies is this term of Parliament. They're putting the legislation through in this term of Parliament so this idea that they're taking this to the Australian people is deeply misleading. They're legislating it now without taking it to the Australian people, full stop. And that was my point this morning. In terms of what would happen post-election if we were to win, then the Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton has been absolutely clear, and I firmly agree with him. We would repeal the legislation That is our position. But the point I want to emphasise here is this is not about the next election. Labor is proposing to put this legislation through in this term of Parliament and you know, they're using the usual kind of spin that we are now getting consistently from this Labor Government to argue somehow that they're not breaking an election promise. This is a super-sized election promise that has been broken.

REPORTER:

But it would be up to Australians to decide whether they wanted that to happen, given the changes come through after the election. So are you saying those changes shouldn't occur and what would you do to make up that tax shortfall?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

If Labor is serious about putting this to the Australian people, they shouldn't legislate before the next election. It's very simple. It's very simple. This is very tricky from Labor because they're not expecting any revenue from it until after the next election so they shouldn't and that's how you put it to the Australian people. They have no intention of putting it to the Australian people. This is going to the Parliament in this term. So there's no ambiguity about that. It's just the same kind of spin that we consistently get from Labor. I mean, we've been very clear on where there’s savings. I mean $45 billion dollars of spending that Labor’s committed in recent months that we've said no to. Now they’re not happy about us saying no, but it's not the right time to be spending more of Australians’ money. Australians are struggling to make ends meet. They've got rising taxes already flowing through. We don't need more pressure on their budgets through a big spending, big taxing government.

REPORTER:

Isn’t Labor’s proposal far more modest than the superannuation tax hikes the Coalition delivered in [inaudible].

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Let's be very clear about this. They haven't been upfront with the Australian people about how many Australians are going to be impacted and the important point here is the Treasurer included a very tricky provision in what he's laid out, which is to not index the threshold. It’s this kind of tricky behavior we're starting to see from Labor and what it means is that for someone who's expecting to go into the pension phase in 10, 20, 30, 40 years even, their threshold in real terms will be way below what Labor has laid out and if inflation continues to rage, that threshold in real terms will fall dramatically and the number of Australians affected will fall dramastically. Now, it's on the government to be honest with Australians about how many people will be affected under a range of different inflation scenarios. But what I can be very confident of, it is a lot more than they are saying. As always with this Labor Government, it's a Trojan Horse Government, and they just want to get into power and do what they want you to do without being upfront with the Australian people. This is a Prime Minister who’s said that his word is his bond and yet within 12 months, within 12 months, he's walked away from a very clear commitment about superannuation taxes.

REPORTER:

On a different issue, do you think that the government has a right to block a Chinese-linked investment fund investing in an Australian rare earths producer?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

I haven't seen any details on that so I can't comment but I’ll have a look at it. Any other questions?

REPORTER:

On the government's big spending [inaudible] one of things that they have been in prioritising in the budget is they’ll fund some discounts for pensioners for their power bills. You voted against that? Do you think that's a fair thing for the government to spend money on?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

No we voted against the government's price caps. That's what we voted against, which won't work and already we're seeing the result of the supply side of the gas industry and I'm very confident we’ll see a lot more than that. But we want higher incomes for pensioners. That's why we went to the budget in reply and laid out a pathway for pensioners to be able to do a few extra hours of work and not lose their pensions. I mean, this would solve two problems. It would get more workers available for businesses. That's a great thing. It's the number one thing we hear from small businesses around Australia is that they're just struggling to get workers and we see some of that in the data today. But it would also solve the problem of getting more income into pensioner’s pockets. So that's the sort of initiative we want to see from the government. They've come up with a half-baked version of what I just described, sadly, they gone where we wanted them to go but if they were serious about pensioners being better off they would adopt that policy. A full-baked version of it. Any other questions? All good. Thank you very much.

ENDS.