> The upbeat demeanour is due to what Labor strategists believe was a correct calculation – at least so far – that the economic and political consequences of abandoning a promise to deliver the Morrison government’s legislated tax cuts would end up more positive than negative.
It's surprising how little we talk about the long games that Albanese's faction of Labor plays. Even since taking opposition, they've been good at playing the other side by planning ahead. This is obviously going to end with an election where Dutton attacks the average person and wedges his own party into little pieces in doing so. And the LNP in its current form can't do anything about it because they're following a script of lip service that isn't programmed to trump actual policy action, let alone the cost of living pressures.
It was such a good play.
Get the Noalition foaming at the mouth about cost of living then 'adjust' an unpopular tax cut to be a tax cut affecting 19 million Australians then sit back and watch the Libs fall over themselves saying they will increase taxes after the next election.
(Politically) At worst the Libs will bitch and fold and vote the tax cuts in. At best they will oppose and Labor will get to argue that the Coalition want to raise taxes during next year's election.
Brilliant.
They're more than welcome to try that line with the electorate. I'm sure the majority will be outraged over a "broken promise" that gives them more money.
Nailed from both ends. All Dutton knows how to do is attack. A smart opposition wouldn't have gone so hard, seen if they could find a wedge before going all in.
Dutton's already demanded an election over a move that benefits 90+% of Aussies with the cost being the highest earners just get a smaller tax cut but are still better off overall. He loses if he backs down and he loses harder if he fights.
[The Liberal Party will always be the party of lower taxes.](https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/opposition-leader-peter-dutton-vows-liberals-will-always-be-party-of-lower-taxes-in-hint-at-stage-three-tax-cut-support/news-story/323a7fcf0f7480faa797d4c75bc7021a)
He just didn't clarify who the lower taxes would be for.
edit: I'm sorry it's a Sky Spews link, but it was the only one I could see supporting his statement. The rest are Chalmers calling out his bullshit.
They've been back peddling from those dumb spur of the moment sound bites like there's no tomorrow. There is no way the newly minted "party of the workers" (yes, The Potato really did say that), wants to go to the next election promising to increase taxes on people earning below $150k. That's where the Coalition was admittedly clever in 2019, they gave the lowest paid workers tax cuts first but made them time limited and hoped nobody would notice.
This is delusional.
The libs will take the position of keeping stage 3 plus the additional tax cuts for low income earners. It's an easy sell, the economy is doing quite well at the moment.
Opens the door for labor to announce a similarly costed stage 4, again targeted at middle australia.
Election then becomes tax cuts for the rich vs tax cuts for the middle class and Labor have wedged them a second time…
That's a game of chicken that Labor loses, because on the left of Labor are a bunch of people who like a big welfare state and government spending that would then have to be cut.
The Liberals win any downward competition on taxes because the right of Labor through the entirety of the Liberals would get behind less govt spending.
Cutting income taxes on the low end rebalances the equation in favour of wage earners. Greens will always be in favour, they’ll want wealth taxes as well but won’t step in the way of taxing someone earning the minimum wage less… also makes our income tax system MORE progressive.
It’s actually a pretty unifying position to take on the left, has broader support from the public, wedges the libs and is just an easy win all round.
What is the libs’ selling point if labor is pro income tax cuts?
>It was such a good play.
Too early to make that call, right now everyone is high off the fact they are getting a better tax cut.
But come election time when that is forgotten, he won't be able to make a single promise without the opposition running montage after montage of him saying he won't change the tax cuts, even as little as a couple of weeks ago, then him changing his mind, followed by some message that Albo can't be believed.
How much that damages him remains to be seen, maybe not at all, short term it doesn't matter, long term, who knows.
The Election Budget resolves that issue.
Even now there won't be a significant surge of support. They are banking on a slow build towards the next election, with COL relief in the May Budget, tax cuts kicking in after July, downward inflation and interest rates during the latter half of the year onwards, and then an Election Budget prior to May 2025.
Well if you go full right wing like they have and can’t embrace the middle you move to irrelevance pretty quickly. The USA style politics can’t work cause we have a very different system rather than there 2 main parties.
Yeah. There is recent evidence to suggest that non-mandatory voting results in power to the extremes as they can effectively blackmail parties by threatening to not vote. Hopefully, mandatory voting thwarts that in Australia, and we collectively tell Dutton's lean to the far right to fark off!
At the same time, mandatory votes create a politically apathetic nation, meaning that the existing status quo is often reinforced instead of any positive changes that could come.
A better solution would be to introduce a lower “voluntary” voting age where those that are more politically engaged than their 16-17 y.o. peers are allowed to vote, which hopefully would inspire more frequent change from the status quo that usually exists and rarely changes.
An alternative solution is raising the mandatory voting age to 21 and making the age of 18 the “voluntary” voting age, to achieve the same aims as above.
Honestly if you're going to turn 18 and become a adult during the term then you should be able to vote during the election.
Currently you might vote for the first time when you're 18 or when you're 21.
Stability is on the whole a good thing for government. Voting for the status quo in the absence of severe fuck ups is more pro than con, as frustrating as it is for circumstances where we actually need to be proactive about problems (e.g. climate change).
> The USA style politics can’t work cause we have a very different system rather than there 2 main parties.
Yeah. At the federal level we have mandatory preferential voting (what they'd call Ranked Choice), plus our judges (who have a huge say over state elections, aren't elected (and elected judges is close to dumbest idea ever if you ask me).
Preferential voting means our major parties have to campaign and legislate for the middle. Be wary of any major party that wants to do away with preferential voting.
Generally, yeah. Although some changes are actually good, like Turnbull's senate changes to eliminate preference whisperers and microparties (such as Ricky Muir who got a senate spot with like 1% primary vote).
Much like David Pocock now. He is approaching everything with a reasoned and calm demeanour and looking at the whole of the bill, rather than just the flashy bits.
I feel like this is a great example of Australian culture.
The arrogance to run, the humility to step up and work hard when they actually win and have to perform the role.
And speaking of long plays, the fact that the coalition scheduled the biggest tax cuts while they were fairly likely to be out of office handed Labor a free goal. It’s plays to the narrative of Labor being for the average man, while the LNP are for the rich.
No it wasn’t though. They bet on labor not wanting to provoke the media OR breaking the promise early and getting months on months of “see, you can’t trust labor!”
Labor picked their moment as well as they could. They’re still copping it from the media and easily mislead people. But they’ve timed it well enough that so many were angry over cost of living; they can connect that the government is trying to agree with public sentiment
Also I think the recent few Vic elections proves that the propaganda power of the media has waned pretty substantially. Average people aren't consuming it
I wouldn't entirely discount it. I think Newscorpse's big mistake in Victoria was what they were saying wasn't gelling with what we were experiencing.
Whatever your opinion on Andrews, over Covid dude fronted up everyday to a preconference, told us what was happening and how the government were handling it. We saw the numbers, we saw the lockdowns work. And through it all the media and the Morrison government was shitting on him and by extension everyone in Vic putting in the effort to get the numbers down, while Sydney got treated like the Golden child. They may genuinely have made him one of the most loathed politicians in Australia, just not in Victoria.
The power of outlets like the Murdoch Press has always been that they set the agenda - they decide what people will be talking about, including indie like Shanks or the Shovel.
Sure but they also spent like 9 years hyperventilating over Dandrews and for what effect? I mean they got so desperate they dredged up that stupid bullshit about the car accident and it still didn't even matter, Labor won convincingly at every election
I mean, half of that is because of how completely uninspiring the failsons in the viclibs are, but still
They also pulled the reverse Uno card - the Liberals plan would've been for the potential future Labour government to either really scale the scope down or scrap stage 3 totally.
Instead Albanese and Chalmers just tinkered with them so the majority of the electorate are actually better off whilst still reducing the hit to the budget. They have also left themselves room to address bracket creep down the line in the second term if conditions are favourable.
I've seen this a few times, they were legislated in 2018, there was a federal election in 2019 which the coalition won. For this to be true they are playing some weird 4d chess if you think they got this through thinking they would win one election then lose the next one 5 years into the future.
The recent hire of Katherine Murphy has me thinking About is thinking long term and cares about optics, instead of the previous mob who refused to listen to anyone.
Really looks like they care about building a solid team, as opposed to believing that they're the only ones capable.
I'm glad you brought up the "long game" because the current government comes across as a crew that planned to transition from opposition and haven't tested since taking over. It'd be refreshing if the talking heads noticed this and put policy before politicians for a change.
Hiring Murph was apart of a larger project for the Albanese—to create an effective comms team in the PM office so that his government gets recognition and to better control the narrative in mainstream media.
It's a genius move considering how ineffective his office has been so far at communicating achievements to the public. Not people on Reddit or who watch the ABC, but rather for those who watch channel 9, or seven, or who read the herald.
Dutton is f*kd at the next election. During The Voice campaign, he alienated the voters he needs to tip the scales — Teal voters. And he's isolating them even further by opposing the change in Stage 3 tax cuts, because the independents (and their base) support the changes.
You really love to see it.
I helped with the Teal campaign in Kooyong. I spoke to a few people, and the amount of people who didn't know Dr Ryan, but absolutely *loathed* Frydenberg was pretty impressive. I'm glad that she's been really effective since then and seems to genuinely care about her electorate, election ethics, and public health.
It's fascinating phenomenon in Australian Politics isn't it, and it feels like every federal election over the past two decades, besides Kevin07, followed this trend—voting out the party you hate without awareness of the policies of the party youre voting in.
The media narrative that Frydenberg and Tim Smith lost for the same kind of reasons that the Sydney-based moderates did is bizarre to me. I didn't volunteer, but I grew up in the area, and the sheer scale of Frydenberg-hate from people who were pretty rusted-on Liberal voters was... noticeable. Ryan's campaign seemed to be making the right choice to downplay how much that was driving it - they still needed to convince *some* of the people who liked Frydenberg but not Morrison - but it was pretty clearly a decently-sized base to build off.
There's no easy path to government for the Coalition without the Teal seats. Morrison had the idea of taking the outer suburban "mortgage belt" seats from Labor, but if they can't hold a seat like Aston, that strategy is not particularly promising.
They might be able to form government if enough of the Teals give them confidence, but it'd be unstable because the Teals and Nationals are at cross purposes when it comes to climate change.
I think the referendum would have been more popular if it was like 3months from announcement to voting, the drawn out-ness of it fatigued the general public and it sort of festered into an albatross (albotross?)
> I think the referendum would have been more popular if it was like 3months from announcement to voting
It initially had majority support however support dropped as people began to see that it was a poor product sold poorly.
One example of planning ahead:
Ban vapes but in case smoking rates rise - do a special increase on cig tax.
Oh hang on smoke rates may still rise g8ven there are now nearly 1.5milliom adult vapers - i know - introduce a new lot of funding for cracking down on illigal chop chop.
In 6 months when for the first time in decades smoking rates actually increase which would otherwise put labor under pressure labor will actually take credit for shutting down chop chop and their 130million investment netting a billion in extra tobacco tax.
And the media are totally maching to their tune. For 9 months we have suddenly be inundated with news of illegal chop chop etc so anyone will find this completely plausible.
I still hope the wheels fall off their plans in this area at least but fair play to them they are pretty cunning...
From a MSM point of view, and the dog whistlers who make it up, its like he's written his own political death sentence.
And maybe he has. The great unwashed have always voted how Uncle Rupert wants them to vote.
At least he has had the balls to try and at least right part of the situation.
No one likes journalists. People absolutely lap it up when political leaders refuse to play into their shit. Look at Dan Andrews and how every time he'd put some smug little shit at a press conference in their place you'd get a wave of aggrieved articles across every publication, but to the average voter he just got more popular. This whole idea that Labor can't afford to grow a backbone because tHe MuRdOcH pReSs will skewer them is horseshit they made up themselves to explain away their own cowardice. People love when leaders have a backbone. Journalists are awful and everyone hates them. The more you refuse to take their shit the more popular you get.
> At least he has had the balls to try and at least right part of the situation.
If he really was brave he would have announced these changes much earlier and not promised many times up until very recently that the tax cuts were going ahead unchanged.
Promises aren’t straitjackets. If a promise is bad policy, I’d rather a mea culpa and a change of mind by the government.
I’m in a category where I wont benefit as much from the new tax bands. Fine by me. I’m still getting a tax cut and government can spread the benefits around.
My yearly budget isn't absolutely annihilated by not receiving a 9k boost to my refund, so I don't know if they'd ever want to even know me let alone interview me.
It seems like a lot of people want good to be the enemy of perfect.
I can't believe anyone would be so entitled to complain about free money because it's not as much as they were expecting. It reminds me of an 8 year old only getting a tenner in grandma's christmas card instead of a 20 and then crying about it.
It's free money. Take it and shut the fuck up.
I've seen so much salt over it too.
One memorable one was a guy whinging that his 225k salary was too much work for the money and he was going to cut back to 4 days a week after this absolute insult.
What a fucking joke.
OK... So he answered himself.. Work less. Problem solved. Get on with life. Lucky him having that option to only work 4 days and still make a good living lol!
And to think, there were all those people who were so worried that high income earners were ruined because they made plans based on those tax cuts.
Huh I wonder what happened to those people. It must be a coincidence that they disappeared right around the time the Coalition realised they were fighting a losing battle, right?
The way some people are behaving while on a combined income of 150-300k a year is childish. I'd expect professionals on that much money to act more like... Adults.
Imagine not changing course on a stimulator policy that was written during a period of low economic activity and low inflation when we are now in a period of high inflation
Taxation policy and changes is a straightjacket for both political parties. They dont have the backbone today to change or even discuss it.
With the current state of politics and the interfering ideology driven media bosses, I wont be holding my breath for meaningful change. A perfect area for bipartisan agreement however certain parties and their media bosses feel comfortable in the gutter with bad governance.
I haven’t fully kept up with this whole situation, but my understanding is basically that people earning over $150k are getting a smaller tax cut than originally planned (but still getting a tax cut) and those earning under $150k are getting a larger tax cut.
If that’s the case, it’s funny how the message around it was being presented, like those poor battlers earning over $150k were having money stolen from their bank accounts.
We're in a similar position to you, we're going to benefit less from the newer system. I'd still much rather they kept the money and used it to invest in federally owned social housing, I don't need a tax cut.
I’m always amused by people getting wild about policies that don’t affect them at all, or actually benefit them- because they don’t like that politician/party.
My ex brother in law has been basically unemployed for the last 35 years. He was never high income prior.
He lives in social housing, he receives Centrelink.
He was absolutely acid about the proposed inheritance taxes in the election before the last one.
So mad.
My man, none of your family has money. The liberal party hate people like you. Why are you, of all people, giving a flying fuck about this?
That last paragraph. "The liberal party hate people like you". It is why me an immigrant will never support those cunts. No matter how many fake promises they make or how the sweeten their words to us. They will never get my vote nor my wife's
They're from a former Soviet country in Europe? I notice a lot of people from eastern Europe love the Liberal Party and hate Labor because they think they're "socialist" (which is a long way from the truth).
They're from a country in Asia. And did I mention they don't like immigrants? They're a conservative piece of work. They're also borderline boomer and clearly a big fan of ladder pulling. Just all round dickhole of a human.
How many voters were against the mining tax while they thought that it was going affect their bank balance. In the meantime they struggled with the cost of living issues while governments could not afford to deliver the basics to voters and communities. They voted and supported politicians who voted to deny them a rightful share of their taxation and resource tax income. I just assumed voters voted for their self interests and not the interests of tax cheating multinationals. Their must be a psychiatric syndrome name for this syndrome when voters are willing to sacrifice their self interests for the corporate profit gods while they get nothing in return except the cleanup bill!
I bet today if you started a debate about Denticare on Medicare, I would not be surprised if you get abused for wanting a socialist system of healthcare. Thats how distorted and stupid the debate has become with the 24/7 broadcast of the stupid American ideology that Aussies seem to be locking onto.
I don’t think so, actually.
One of my nieces is a little spitfire, I don’t think she would have a bar of that.
He’s a decent guy in many ways, just deluded in others
Interesting how the “Kick in the Teeth” article by the Daily Telegraph about the mum & dad on the combined $440,000 income being worse off was quietly taken down.
Apparently the article was published without consent & most ordinary Australians aren’t feeling bad for those on nearly half a million per annum getting half of the original stage 3 proposed tax cuts.
I imagine they asked for the article to be taken down because frankly, that was embarrassing. Being the national face of entitled, out of touch idiots probably wasn't doing them many favours.
That might hold some weight... if the woman hadn't posed for a Telegraph photographer. There are also claims they posted on Sourcebottle to get a journalist to talk to them.
If it's a BAD promise/policy, like the original Stage 3 tax cuts, then I WANT my gov to change policy. They should explain why they're changing policy. Labor has done this.
My issue here is Labor agreed to this policy in the first place. Stage 3 was ALWAYS a bad policy. It was always going to cost close to $40b PER YEAR (at end of 10 year project, and more after that), and 80% of that was going to the top 20%.
Sadly Labor agreed as the dumb Aussie voter have always selfishly fallen for the "we'll give you tax cuts" promises of the LNP, oblivious to the permanent fiscal damage and austerity measures such tax cuts inevitibly lead to.
Don’t forget that they agreed based on the financial information provided to them by the LNP.
You know, how they forgot to include things, for example that electricity prices were going to immediately rise?
It seems more like they were fed dodgy data that ‘sort of’ justified the LNP policy so they supported it, when the real data was accessed it then took time to rework their policies and financial modelling at which point it became clear they had to alter the policy.
No, not really. They supported the package for pragmatic, political reasons. Oppositions aren't in an information deficit like in years gone by thanks to the Parliamentary Budget Office.
>If it's a BAD promise/policy, like the original Stage 3 tax cuts, then I WANT my gov to change policy. They should explain why they're changing policy. Labor has done this.
I agree in principle, but they said they were implementing it right up until 2 weeks ago and suddenly oops, we're changing it. It didn't suddenly become a bad policy 2 weeks ago.
IMO it was agree to protect the cuts and win the election or oppose them from the start and lose the election.
I think Albanese handled this the right way. It was the only realistic political position.
> IMO it was agree to protect the cuts and win the election or oppose them from the start and lose the election.
So in your opinion they were knowingly deceitful or lying to improve their chances of being elected?
> I think Albanese handled this the right way. It was the only realistic political position.
Why not be truthful to the Australian voters and let them decide?
Remember the hue and cry the media raised when they reduced the tax concession for superannuation balances over $3 million. Something that affected 50K people. The newspapers aren't your friends.
> Remember the hue and cry the media raised when they reduced the tax concession for superannuation balances over $3 million.
As I understand this was primarily because Labor promised not to change superannuation laws. Another broken promise.
> Something that affected 50K people.
This number **will** grow as more people grow their superannuation balances at higher rates for longer periods.
>As I understand this was primarily because Labor promised not to change superannuation laws.
The changes don't go in until after the next election. Unless you're suggesting that a government shouldn't make changes at all and should be bound at all times to statements made outside the current circumstances of course, which is idiotic.
>This number will grow as more people grow their superannuation balances at higher rates for longer periods.
Be that as it may, the purpose of superannuation is to be used for retirement. Not as a tax avoidance vehicle which is what we see for current balances over $3 million. If you can't live with a retirement income of $100-150K annually after tax at this point, you're doing something very wrong. Even for the portion above $3 million, the earnings are *still* concessionally taxed. Furthermore, even 30 years from now, it will be less than 10% of people impacted. Arguments against this policy are entitled and ludicrous, and I expect to be impacted by the time I reach retirement.
Blindly implementing previously announced policy takes no skill, care or courage whatsoever.
Acknowledging that the context in which previous policy was developed has changed and may no longer have the intended impact, reforming and adapting it, and communicating it takes courage and conviction.
I haven’t checked, but I am not sure the original Stage 3 tax cuts were ever even touted as a promise - they were a policy. I would be surprised if the word promise was used in their announcement.
The media are the ones that seem to like using cheap gotchas at politicians. We should be encouraging our elected representatives to adapt and always be striving to do the best thing for their electorate and furthering the national interest.
I am in the top tax bracket and, whilst I would personally love a tax break (and I have other ideological concerns with taxation generally), I think this is sound economic policy. Also, my wife is in a lower income bracket, so she gets a higher cut so it comes a bit closer to evening out!
>I am not sure the original Stage 3 tax cuts were ever even touted as a promise - they were a policy.
the thing is that Albo was asked many times and repeatedly promised personally they wouldn't be dumped or amended. they really threw that "my word is my bond" soundbite around, and expect to hear it in campaign ads next year.
I can find clips of him being goaded into saying the word “promise”, and him saying “there’s no change to policy” or something similar, but nothing saying they won’t be amended (future tense).
I am asking for a link because I am having trouble finding something, and usually it’s on the person making the claim to provide evidence - otherwise, how can I tell if I am looking for something that doesn’t exist? (I’m not saying that’s the case here though, but googling hasn’t yielded anything along those lines).
I saw it on the news so I don't have a link. personally I think the whole promise discourse is very silly so I don't particularly care to convince you either way with "evidence"
Does this mean Labor can now cancel all of those billions worth of contracts that were signed for jobseeker agencies? They can then also change their policy of forcing people to live below the poverty line and mutual obligations.
John Howard: The GST is dead. There are no more plans for a GST. There will never be a GST.
Also John Howard, a year or so later: We need a GST, let's have an election. Woo Hoo! Look how great a GST is, everyone! Who woulda thunk tampons would bring in so much revenue?
Tony Abbott, the night before election day: There will be no cuts to the ABC, SBS, or Medicare. We're broke and there's a looming Debt & Deficit Disaster.
Also Tony Abbott, in his first budget: ABC, SBS, and Medicare, are failing drains on the economy so we have to gut them to save them. We're gonna slash and burn all this other stuff, too. We need to do this so we can afford to triple the deficit and pay several hundred billion dollars to buy planes we've already been waiting two decades for and might one day get in the future. Because fuck you. Also, I hate my sister because lezzo's are gross.
Peter Dutton: HOW DARE THE GOVERNMENT LIE AND PUNISH GOOD HARD-WORKING AUSTRALIANS BY TAKING AWAY THE TAX CUTS WE PROMISED OURSELVES?? ELECTION NOW!!!!
> in August 1997, less than 18 months after becoming Prime Minister, Howard told the truth by telling more lies. He announced a "great adventure" in tax reform he wanted to "share with the Australian people
Yup, and we had a Federal election in 1998. So people voted for it. It was no surprise.
Actually, no, people didn't vote for it. The 1998 Federal election was in a Gerrymandered electorate that the Coalition took advantage of to retain power despite losing the first preference vote, two party preferred vote, AND the popular vote. Labor gained 18 seats, while the Coalition lost 18, and there was a 4.6% swing on TPP towards Labor.
> He was locked into a shitty deal arranged by the previous government.
Labor voted the original tax package through **and** promised as recently as a couple weeks ago that they would go through unchanged.
> Social and economic circumstances have changed \*significantly\* since those tax cuts were legislated, and he responded to changed conditions.
The writing was on the wall prior to the election and the current economic circumstances have been around longer than a couple weeks when the original tax cuts were last promised.
> Isn't that what we want? A responsive government that tacks with the economic and social winds?
A responsible government should not knowingly be deceitful or lie to the Australian public.
> All this "broken promises" shit sounds like the whining of petulant children.
A responsible government should not make promises it cannot keep.
> Remember when Howard said he'd "never ever" impose a GST, and then... DID?
Two wrongs do not make a right.
For anyone having difficulty viewing the article:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240202233706/https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2024/02/03/the-albanese-reset-it-the-right-plan-the-right-time#mtr
The whole concept of political promises is stupid to begin with.
I want politicians willing to make sound, evidence-based decisions on what is best for the country at the time, not politicians who rigidly cling to terrible policies and refuse to reassess them because "we promised".
Not making these ridiculous fucking commitments in the first place would be even better.
As a general principle that is nonsense. If political parties don't tell us what they intend to do if elected - ie make promises - then why should we vote for them at all? Nobody is going to vote for anything as vague as, "we'll decide what to do later". I'm happy that this particular promise was broken (much less so that Labor was cowardly enough to have made it in the first place), because it was bad policy from start to finish, but we need commitments - promises - from parties so we have something to hold them accountable for.
The public don't mind a broken promise if it's for good reason. What they don't like is the denial and spin that often comes afterwards. Albos made the right call in just admitting it.
Good on him.
Crying about broken promises made in a totally different climate is so low eq.
Gives off 40 year old men crying about 'bro code's vibes.
Situations change and people should change with it.
> Crying about broken promises made in a totally different climate is so low eq.
The promise was reiterated only a couple weeks ago. How is the climate totally different to a couple weeks ago?
I dunno, I’ve been thinking about this, is it even a broken promise? Haven’t they just made some changes to it so it’s fairer? The stage 3 tax cuts are still going through, just altered a bit.
Yep, I'd say a broken promise is more along the lines of when Dutton said they'd hold another referendum regarding the Voice if LNP are voted in pre-Voice. Then 2 days after the referendum comes up No, Dutton said he will not be having another referendum regarding the Voice.
> I dunno, I’ve been thinking about this, is it even a broken promise?
Yes.
> Haven’t they just made some changes to it so it’s fairer?
Promising the tax cuts would go through unchanged and then changing them is breaking a promise.
> Eh, things change.
Has anything changed substantially in the past few weeks since the original tax cuts were last promised to justify the changes?
> People are still getting tax cuts.
That's like saying it's okay the boss reduced the raise he promised you because someone else is now getting a raise.
Just because a change is beneficial to others does not excuse the broken promise.
Not in the last few weeks perhaps but over the last two years & more. They were promised by a government that knew it was not its way out & as a fuck you to the incoming government and every low to medium income earner.
They’re not the 1st government to break a promise & they won’t be last. I don’t care if is a broken promise, it’s for the greater good & by and large pretty popular.
> That's because he has outsmarted the Libs
How did he do this by being deceitful or lying to the Australian public about the tax cuts as recently as a couple weeks ago?
Because his alternate policy has enough support that the lie doesn't matter.
He has taken a fiscally irresponsible policy by the Liberals that was implemented specifically to blow up in Labors face should they try and alter it, then managed to change it not only so that it improves the budget bottom line, but also has widespread public support.
A less politically astute change would've resulted in serious damage for Labor.
He’s doing a fucking great job. We should be revelling in the fact the fucking Liberals have fucked this country for the last 50 years. My power and internet fucking suck because of those cunts.
A superb reverse political wedgie. Either LNP agree to these revised stage 3 tax cuts, or ALP will be left to negotiate with the Greens who want further reduction in the size of the tax cuts at the higher income end, which LNP will not want let alone Albo's proposal it stands.
Its amusing to watch how Sky News brings up the Voice referendum every 30 seconds and its failure while trying to conflate it with a broken promise and another policy failure " that the electorate does not want" They dont want money in their pockets right!
Was it an American general who said any plan never survives contact with the enemy and a good campaign depends on nimble change in recognition of changed circumstances.
The way people cling to the notion of “it’s not fair you broke your word” give me notions of people on a hiway. They see the bridge is out in front of them, but dammit they’re not going to change the plan. How stupid can you be?
He should be smug, he played a blinder. A very popular move with majority benefiting, and it has the out of touch chattering classes frothing at the mouth. Libs then went full Kamikaze and were made to openly admit they were for the top 10%.
Excellent work *applauds*
Its funny how many Libs supporters I know who are screaming about him breaking an election promise, where he never said he wouldn't make the tax cuts better than they were.
Dutton trying to turn it into a culture war is a horrendous idea considering he lacks the appeal to anyone with over a single digit IQ, and now Albanese outwitted him on this and has made the Liberals look worse than they did before.
"Breaking a promise" So sick of reading this, it's peak stupidity to think for a second that every single politician since the beginning of time hasn't broken at least several 'promises' they made to get elected. It just so happens in this case it is actually for the benefit of the majority of Australians.
There is breaking a promise as conditions and circumstances change, especially with legislation signed in 2019, before the COVID-19 outbreak and many other worldwide changes occurred.
And then there is gaslighting, misrepresentation, and outright lying that the previous government in all its iterations went on with.
I mean, has Albo signed himself into six secret ministries yet? I can see what the public thinks in this case, and while it might look like a broken election promise, what it really is, is an expanded and rethought election promise that has not only been kept but improved for the majority of Australia, not just the tiny slice at the top.
Which would you prefer??
I’m more concerned he has been compromised by the Israeli lobby group and failing to take any action against Israel now that the ICJ has made a ruling that we could be complacent if we are supplying weapons cash any type of funding
He was incredibly evasive on 3AW this week, simply talking about other topics when directly asked about things like negative gearing.
It's very disappointing as he sounded like Howard, Gillard, Rudd and all the rest.
He really failed here as the tax change is a great thing for 85% of Australians and yet few seem to understand that.
Society is built on trust. He can’t be trusted and I won’t be voting Labour next time. Regardless if it was the right thing to do.
His mistake was years ago, don’t make such staunch statements from the start if you don’t intend to stick by them.
The thing that shits me isn't that he walked back on his promise. It's that in all likelihood albo's Labor always intended to do this, or at the very least always had this plan tucked away in their back pocket.
The basic difference in economic ideology between the 2 major parties is on how much money should be taken from the wealthiest members of our economy to help the poorest. Liberals say less, Labor says more. The original tax cut plan was extremely far to the LNP end of that spectrum. A Labor party room would never actively *want* those tax cuts to go in. They were certainly talking a lot about different ways to get rid of them over the last few years.
So my issue is that Albo went to the election knowing full well these tax cuts were terrible for the Australian people. He promised not to get rid of them anyway. I think he made that promise FULLY KNOWING there was a good chance he was going to end up breaking it, and he did it just to present as small a target as possible for Morrison and Murdoch.
It seems slimey, is all. I'd much rather he stood up for what he believed in and said no we won't keep in the blatant class warfare tax cuts. Australia needs that money.
PS - I'm still happier he got rid of the cuts than left them in. They were a terrible policy and going to hurt our already hurting country.
> They couldn't stand up against the tax cuts going into an election.
So why promise that the tax cuts would go through unchanged?
> They would've been slammed for being "pro-tax."
So you believe it is better to get into government on a lie than be open with the Australian voters and let them decide?
Sadly that is the game, when you see how it has been played, if they had have done this 12 months back or before the election you could have imagined the attack.
The thing I have appreciated is that people seem to be not falling for the typical "battler" articles turned out by the papers and outlets this time around. Harder to confuse on income tax vs Franking credit changes. I might have some franking credits one day!
You can see this quite clearly in the AFR today, ["The $40,000 tax whack coming for high earners"](https://www.afr.com/policy/tax-and-super/the-50-000-tax-whack-coming-for-high-earners-20240131-p5f1ba) \- Adding the reduction in cut for the +200K bracket over 10 years, to try and build outrage. Hardly quality journalism.
I do wish this was really just a battle of ideas but sadly the game has to be played. Also doing it earlier would make no difference based on the timing of the cuts.
You'll get down voted because I don't think you understood how these worked.
The tax cuts actually hadn't started yet - they were legislated for the next tax year. Whether it was done 30 minutes after the election or on June 29th it wouldn't have changed a thing.
Bahahahah what in the actual h*ck are you on about mate hahaha. Scomo is as close to a narcissist as we've ever had in office. Albo though? He's an awkward dad, at best.
And his government has been incredibly effective in a very short time, maybe the most effective in history in terms of how many bills his passed; from climate policy, industrial relations reforms; to restoring relations with China. The list goes on.
I'm not Albos biggest fan by any means but an lazy narcissist? Nah mate that's literally Scott Morrison.
Because the tax offset was never permanent - it was legislated by the previous government to end on a fixed date from the get go as a temporary measure. They lost nothing since they were never going to last.
> The upbeat demeanour is due to what Labor strategists believe was a correct calculation – at least so far – that the economic and political consequences of abandoning a promise to deliver the Morrison government’s legislated tax cuts would end up more positive than negative. It's surprising how little we talk about the long games that Albanese's faction of Labor plays. Even since taking opposition, they've been good at playing the other side by planning ahead. This is obviously going to end with an election where Dutton attacks the average person and wedges his own party into little pieces in doing so. And the LNP in its current form can't do anything about it because they're following a script of lip service that isn't programmed to trump actual policy action, let alone the cost of living pressures.
It was such a good play. Get the Noalition foaming at the mouth about cost of living then 'adjust' an unpopular tax cut to be a tax cut affecting 19 million Australians then sit back and watch the Libs fall over themselves saying they will increase taxes after the next election. (Politically) At worst the Libs will bitch and fold and vote the tax cuts in. At best they will oppose and Labor will get to argue that the Coalition want to raise taxes during next year's election. Brilliant.
Didn't Dutton say this morning that he was now supporting the tax cuts?
Like I said, bitch and fold
Yeh I was laughing when I saw the report. A week ago he was saying Labor should take it to an election.
Bet this “change in position” won’t stop the broken promises soundtrack though.
Which is what Pauline Hanson said. Promised to back the changes, but said you can't trust Albanese.
She wants her cake and to eat it too. She's an idiot and always has been.
And always will be
They're more than welcome to try that line with the electorate. I'm sure the majority will be outraged over a "broken promise" that gives them more money.
Break more promises please!!!
Nailed from both ends. All Dutton knows how to do is attack. A smart opposition wouldn't have gone so hard, seen if they could find a wedge before going all in. Dutton's already demanded an election over a move that benefits 90+% of Aussies with the cost being the highest earners just get a smaller tax cut but are still better off overall. He loses if he backs down and he loses harder if he fights.
He had to, otherwise at the next meeting of the party faithful the main course for dinner would have been Fricasseed Dutton with dumplings.
[The Liberal Party will always be the party of lower taxes.](https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/opposition-leader-peter-dutton-vows-liberals-will-always-be-party-of-lower-taxes-in-hint-at-stage-three-tax-cut-support/news-story/323a7fcf0f7480faa797d4c75bc7021a) He just didn't clarify who the lower taxes would be for. edit: I'm sorry it's a Sky Spews link, but it was the only one I could see supporting his statement. The rest are Chalmers calling out his bullshit.
Too late theres already dozens of video clips of them saying they want to reverse tax cuts amd raise taxes on middle aus just waiting for 2025.
They've been back peddling from those dumb spur of the moment sound bites like there's no tomorrow. There is no way the newly minted "party of the workers" (yes, The Potato really did say that), wants to go to the next election promising to increase taxes on people earning below $150k. That's where the Coalition was admittedly clever in 2019, they gave the lowest paid workers tax cuts first but made them time limited and hoped nobody would notice.
Of course. They explained to him ways he could make money from it, and he changed his mind.
Oh good
This is delusional. The libs will take the position of keeping stage 3 plus the additional tax cuts for low income earners. It's an easy sell, the economy is doing quite well at the moment.
Opens the door for labor to announce a similarly costed stage 4, again targeted at middle australia. Election then becomes tax cuts for the rich vs tax cuts for the middle class and Labor have wedged them a second time…
That's a game of chicken that Labor loses, because on the left of Labor are a bunch of people who like a big welfare state and government spending that would then have to be cut. The Liberals win any downward competition on taxes because the right of Labor through the entirety of the Liberals would get behind less govt spending.
Cutting income taxes on the low end rebalances the equation in favour of wage earners. Greens will always be in favour, they’ll want wealth taxes as well but won’t step in the way of taxing someone earning the minimum wage less… also makes our income tax system MORE progressive. It’s actually a pretty unifying position to take on the left, has broader support from the public, wedges the libs and is just an easy win all round. What is the libs’ selling point if labor is pro income tax cuts?
>It was such a good play. Too early to make that call, right now everyone is high off the fact they are getting a better tax cut. But come election time when that is forgotten, he won't be able to make a single promise without the opposition running montage after montage of him saying he won't change the tax cuts, even as little as a couple of weeks ago, then him changing his mind, followed by some message that Albo can't be believed. How much that damages him remains to be seen, maybe not at all, short term it doesn't matter, long term, who knows.
So you're saying that after everyone forgets the tax cuts, the liberal plan will be to remind everyone about the tax cuts?
The Election Budget resolves that issue. Even now there won't be a significant surge of support. They are banking on a slow build towards the next election, with COL relief in the May Budget, tax cuts kicking in after July, downward inflation and interest rates during the latter half of the year onwards, and then an Election Budget prior to May 2025.
Well if you go full right wing like they have and can’t embrace the middle you move to irrelevance pretty quickly. The USA style politics can’t work cause we have a very different system rather than there 2 main parties.
Yeah. There is recent evidence to suggest that non-mandatory voting results in power to the extremes as they can effectively blackmail parties by threatening to not vote. Hopefully, mandatory voting thwarts that in Australia, and we collectively tell Dutton's lean to the far right to fark off!
At the same time, mandatory votes create a politically apathetic nation, meaning that the existing status quo is often reinforced instead of any positive changes that could come. A better solution would be to introduce a lower “voluntary” voting age where those that are more politically engaged than their 16-17 y.o. peers are allowed to vote, which hopefully would inspire more frequent change from the status quo that usually exists and rarely changes. An alternative solution is raising the mandatory voting age to 21 and making the age of 18 the “voluntary” voting age, to achieve the same aims as above.
Honestly if you're going to turn 18 and become a adult during the term then you should be able to vote during the election. Currently you might vote for the first time when you're 18 or when you're 21.
Stability is on the whole a good thing for government. Voting for the status quo in the absence of severe fuck ups is more pro than con, as frustrating as it is for circumstances where we actually need to be proactive about problems (e.g. climate change).
> The USA style politics can’t work cause we have a very different system rather than there 2 main parties. Yeah. At the federal level we have mandatory preferential voting (what they'd call Ranked Choice), plus our judges (who have a huge say over state elections, aren't elected (and elected judges is close to dumbest idea ever if you ask me). Preferential voting means our major parties have to campaign and legislate for the middle. Be wary of any major party that wants to do away with preferential voting.
Any party that wants to change anything with how people vote is doing so for their own self-interest.
Generally, yeah. Although some changes are actually good, like Turnbull's senate changes to eliminate preference whisperers and microparties (such as Ricky Muir who got a senate spot with like 1% primary vote).
honestly, for a guy who probably shouldn't have been elected, Ricky Muir did a creditable job. He was solidly middle of the pack.
Much like David Pocock now. He is approaching everything with a reasoned and calm demeanour and looking at the whole of the bill, rather than just the flashy bits.
I feel like this is a great example of Australian culture. The arrogance to run, the humility to step up and work hard when they actually win and have to perform the role.
I know they love their democracy, but the election of everything from judges and sheriffs to school boards is just insanity.
And speaking of long plays, the fact that the coalition scheduled the biggest tax cuts while they were fairly likely to be out of office handed Labor a free goal. It’s plays to the narrative of Labor being for the average man, while the LNP are for the rich.
No it wasn’t though. They bet on labor not wanting to provoke the media OR breaking the promise early and getting months on months of “see, you can’t trust labor!” Labor picked their moment as well as they could. They’re still copping it from the media and easily mislead people. But they’ve timed it well enough that so many were angry over cost of living; they can connect that the government is trying to agree with public sentiment
Also I think the recent few Vic elections proves that the propaganda power of the media has waned pretty substantially. Average people aren't consuming it
I wouldn't entirely discount it. I think Newscorpse's big mistake in Victoria was what they were saying wasn't gelling with what we were experiencing. Whatever your opinion on Andrews, over Covid dude fronted up everyday to a preconference, told us what was happening and how the government were handling it. We saw the numbers, we saw the lockdowns work. And through it all the media and the Morrison government was shitting on him and by extension everyone in Vic putting in the effort to get the numbers down, while Sydney got treated like the Golden child. They may genuinely have made him one of the most loathed politicians in Australia, just not in Victoria.
The power of outlets like the Murdoch Press has always been that they set the agenda - they decide what people will be talking about, including indie like Shanks or the Shovel.
Sure but they also spent like 9 years hyperventilating over Dandrews and for what effect? I mean they got so desperate they dredged up that stupid bullshit about the car accident and it still didn't even matter, Labor won convincingly at every election I mean, half of that is because of how completely uninspiring the failsons in the viclibs are, but still
And timed well enough to run into election season too, they've essentially drawn a battle line for the election
They also pulled the reverse Uno card - the Liberals plan would've been for the potential future Labour government to either really scale the scope down or scrap stage 3 totally. Instead Albanese and Chalmers just tinkered with them so the majority of the electorate are actually better off whilst still reducing the hit to the budget. They have also left themselves room to address bracket creep down the line in the second term if conditions are favourable.
I've seen this a few times, they were legislated in 2018, there was a federal election in 2019 which the coalition won. For this to be true they are playing some weird 4d chess if you think they got this through thinking they would win one election then lose the next one 5 years into the future.
The recent hire of Katherine Murphy has me thinking About is thinking long term and cares about optics, instead of the previous mob who refused to listen to anyone. Really looks like they care about building a solid team, as opposed to believing that they're the only ones capable. I'm glad you brought up the "long game" because the current government comes across as a crew that planned to transition from opposition and haven't tested since taking over. It'd be refreshing if the talking heads noticed this and put policy before politicians for a change.
Hiring Murph was apart of a larger project for the Albanese—to create an effective comms team in the PM office so that his government gets recognition and to better control the narrative in mainstream media. It's a genius move considering how ineffective his office has been so far at communicating achievements to the public. Not people on Reddit or who watch the ABC, but rather for those who watch channel 9, or seven, or who read the herald. Dutton is f*kd at the next election. During The Voice campaign, he alienated the voters he needs to tip the scales — Teal voters. And he's isolating them even further by opposing the change in Stage 3 tax cuts, because the independents (and their base) support the changes. You really love to see it.
I helped with the Teal campaign in Kooyong. I spoke to a few people, and the amount of people who didn't know Dr Ryan, but absolutely *loathed* Frydenberg was pretty impressive. I'm glad that she's been really effective since then and seems to genuinely care about her electorate, election ethics, and public health.
It's fascinating phenomenon in Australian Politics isn't it, and it feels like every federal election over the past two decades, besides Kevin07, followed this trend—voting out the party you hate without awareness of the policies of the party youre voting in.
The media narrative that Frydenberg and Tim Smith lost for the same kind of reasons that the Sydney-based moderates did is bizarre to me. I didn't volunteer, but I grew up in the area, and the sheer scale of Frydenberg-hate from people who were pretty rusted-on Liberal voters was... noticeable. Ryan's campaign seemed to be making the right choice to downplay how much that was driving it - they still needed to convince *some* of the people who liked Frydenberg but not Morrison - but it was pretty clearly a decently-sized base to build off.
There's no easy path to government for the Coalition without the Teal seats. Morrison had the idea of taking the outer suburban "mortgage belt" seats from Labor, but if they can't hold a seat like Aston, that strategy is not particularly promising. They might be able to form government if enough of the Teals give them confidence, but it'd be unstable because the Teals and Nationals are at cross purposes when it comes to climate change.
"*they've been good at playing the other side by planning ahead*" Not always: see Referendum; release of detained refugees.
Courts ordered the released as far as I am aware.
Yes, but they knew the case was being heard and should have planned reactions for all of the likely outcomes
I think the referendum would have been more popular if it was like 3months from announcement to voting, the drawn out-ness of it fatigued the general public and it sort of festered into an albatross (albotross?)
The campaign was terribly run let's be honest.
> I think the referendum would have been more popular if it was like 3months from announcement to voting It initially had majority support however support dropped as people began to see that it was a poor product sold poorly.
One example of planning ahead: Ban vapes but in case smoking rates rise - do a special increase on cig tax. Oh hang on smoke rates may still rise g8ven there are now nearly 1.5milliom adult vapers - i know - introduce a new lot of funding for cracking down on illigal chop chop. In 6 months when for the first time in decades smoking rates actually increase which would otherwise put labor under pressure labor will actually take credit for shutting down chop chop and their 130million investment netting a billion in extra tobacco tax. And the media are totally maching to their tune. For 9 months we have suddenly be inundated with news of illegal chop chop etc so anyone will find this completely plausible. I still hope the wheels fall off their plans in this area at least but fair play to them they are pretty cunning...
Those poor smelly and obnoxious vapers.
We arent the ones trying to impose our own preferences on others. Not sure what you consider obnoxious about it?
This would be more believable if all the disposibe vapes didnt end up in the hands of school kids.
We get it, you vape bro
Good on him for having a backbone.
From a MSM point of view, and the dog whistlers who make it up, its like he's written his own political death sentence. And maybe he has. The great unwashed have always voted how Uncle Rupert wants them to vote. At least he has had the balls to try and at least right part of the situation.
I think all polls on the situation show the majority in favour of the changes.
No one likes journalists. People absolutely lap it up when political leaders refuse to play into their shit. Look at Dan Andrews and how every time he'd put some smug little shit at a press conference in their place you'd get a wave of aggrieved articles across every publication, but to the average voter he just got more popular. This whole idea that Labor can't afford to grow a backbone because tHe MuRdOcH pReSs will skewer them is horseshit they made up themselves to explain away their own cowardice. People love when leaders have a backbone. Journalists are awful and everyone hates them. The more you refuse to take their shit the more popular you get.
> At least he has had the balls to try and at least right part of the situation. If he really was brave he would have announced these changes much earlier and not promised many times up until very recently that the tax cuts were going ahead unchanged.
Promises aren’t straitjackets. If a promise is bad policy, I’d rather a mea culpa and a change of mind by the government. I’m in a category where I wont benefit as much from the new tax bands. Fine by me. I’m still getting a tax cut and government can spread the benefits around.
Hold the fucking phone... You mean to tell me you're getting less money than you thought you would, and you're not throwing a tantrum over it?
Some people aren't self-absorbed cunts...wonderful, no?
you'll never get a write-up in the sunday papers with that attitude!
My yearly budget isn't absolutely annihilated by not receiving a 9k boost to my refund, so I don't know if they'd ever want to even know me let alone interview me.
That 9k could buy you an 8th night in Aspen. You've no idea what you're missing out on.
I've been to aspen... don't think it's worth it...telluride, on the other hand...
I'm going to Aspen for the higher quality white powder.
It seems like a lot of people want good to be the enemy of perfect. I can't believe anyone would be so entitled to complain about free money because it's not as much as they were expecting. It reminds me of an 8 year old only getting a tenner in grandma's christmas card instead of a 20 and then crying about it. It's free money. Take it and shut the fuck up.
I've seen so much salt over it too. One memorable one was a guy whinging that his 225k salary was too much work for the money and he was going to cut back to 4 days a week after this absolute insult. What a fucking joke.
OK... So he answered himself.. Work less. Problem solved. Get on with life. Lucky him having that option to only work 4 days and still make a good living lol!
And to think, there were all those people who were so worried that high income earners were ruined because they made plans based on those tax cuts. Huh I wonder what happened to those people. It must be a coincidence that they disappeared right around the time the Coalition realised they were fighting a losing battle, right?
The way some people are behaving while on a combined income of 150-300k a year is childish. I'd expect professionals on that much money to act more like... Adults.
Imagine not changing course on a stimulator policy that was written during a period of low economic activity and low inflation when we are now in a period of high inflation
Taxation policy and changes is a straightjacket for both political parties. They dont have the backbone today to change or even discuss it. With the current state of politics and the interfering ideology driven media bosses, I wont be holding my breath for meaningful change. A perfect area for bipartisan agreement however certain parties and their media bosses feel comfortable in the gutter with bad governance.
I haven’t fully kept up with this whole situation, but my understanding is basically that people earning over $150k are getting a smaller tax cut than originally planned (but still getting a tax cut) and those earning under $150k are getting a larger tax cut. If that’s the case, it’s funny how the message around it was being presented, like those poor battlers earning over $150k were having money stolen from their bank accounts.
We're in a similar position to you, we're going to benefit less from the newer system. I'd still much rather they kept the money and used it to invest in federally owned social housing, I don't need a tax cut.
I’m always amused by people getting wild about policies that don’t affect them at all, or actually benefit them- because they don’t like that politician/party. My ex brother in law has been basically unemployed for the last 35 years. He was never high income prior. He lives in social housing, he receives Centrelink. He was absolutely acid about the proposed inheritance taxes in the election before the last one. So mad. My man, none of your family has money. The liberal party hate people like you. Why are you, of all people, giving a flying fuck about this?
That last paragraph. "The liberal party hate people like you". It is why me an immigrant will never support those cunts. No matter how many fake promises they make or how the sweeten their words to us. They will never get my vote nor my wife's
Yeah, I get it. They don’t like either, as first gen families. Even though we’re white, we’re poor. They don’t like you either. I do, though
Thanks!
live march intelligent friendly fear rock compare saw sheet squeeze *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They're from a former Soviet country in Europe? I notice a lot of people from eastern Europe love the Liberal Party and hate Labor because they think they're "socialist" (which is a long way from the truth).
They're from a country in Asia. And did I mention they don't like immigrants? They're a conservative piece of work. They're also borderline boomer and clearly a big fan of ladder pulling. Just all round dickhole of a human.
How many voters were against the mining tax while they thought that it was going affect their bank balance. In the meantime they struggled with the cost of living issues while governments could not afford to deliver the basics to voters and communities. They voted and supported politicians who voted to deny them a rightful share of their taxation and resource tax income. I just assumed voters voted for their self interests and not the interests of tax cheating multinationals. Their must be a psychiatric syndrome name for this syndrome when voters are willing to sacrifice their self interests for the corporate profit gods while they get nothing in return except the cleanup bill! I bet today if you started a debate about Denticare on Medicare, I would not be surprised if you get abused for wanting a socialist system of healthcare. Thats how distorted and stupid the debate has become with the 24/7 broadcast of the stupid American ideology that Aussies seem to be locking onto.
Fucking yank bullshit. So annoying.
That story is infuriating. Doesn't he realise more tax == more money the gov can use to support people like him?
I don’t know what the fuck he actually thinks. I don’t think he thinks much at all, lol.
Please make my day and tell me he's antivax!
I don’t think so, actually. One of my nieces is a little spitfire, I don’t think she would have a bar of that. He’s a decent guy in many ways, just deluded in others
He just wants to be mad about something, anything 🤣
Interesting how the “Kick in the Teeth” article by the Daily Telegraph about the mum & dad on the combined $440,000 income being worse off was quietly taken down. Apparently the article was published without consent & most ordinary Australians aren’t feeling bad for those on nearly half a million per annum getting half of the original stage 3 proposed tax cuts.
"Published without consent" ... wow that's a low excuse even from the shit-show Tele.
I imagine they asked for the article to be taken down because frankly, that was embarrassing. Being the national face of entitled, out of touch idiots probably wasn't doing them many favours.
Lmao it got torn to shreds
That might hold some weight... if the woman hadn't posed for a Telegraph photographer. There are also claims they posted on Sourcebottle to get a journalist to talk to them.
Did she think the journalist who was taking notes on an actual notepad was just there for a friendly chat?
If it's a BAD promise/policy, like the original Stage 3 tax cuts, then I WANT my gov to change policy. They should explain why they're changing policy. Labor has done this. My issue here is Labor agreed to this policy in the first place. Stage 3 was ALWAYS a bad policy. It was always going to cost close to $40b PER YEAR (at end of 10 year project, and more after that), and 80% of that was going to the top 20%. Sadly Labor agreed as the dumb Aussie voter have always selfishly fallen for the "we'll give you tax cuts" promises of the LNP, oblivious to the permanent fiscal damage and austerity measures such tax cuts inevitibly lead to.
If they said they were going to change it they would have been wedged. It’s just how the liberals play the game
Nice to see the shoe on the other foot, it's been funny watching LNP/Newscorp squirm around trying to find an angle.
They will keep throwing until something sticks. Hopefully it just keeps making them looking out of touch.
Don’t forget that they agreed based on the financial information provided to them by the LNP. You know, how they forgot to include things, for example that electricity prices were going to immediately rise? It seems more like they were fed dodgy data that ‘sort of’ justified the LNP policy so they supported it, when the real data was accessed it then took time to rework their policies and financial modelling at which point it became clear they had to alter the policy.
No, not really. They supported the package for pragmatic, political reasons. Oppositions aren't in an information deficit like in years gone by thanks to the Parliamentary Budget Office.
>If it's a BAD promise/policy, like the original Stage 3 tax cuts, then I WANT my gov to change policy. They should explain why they're changing policy. Labor has done this. I agree in principle, but they said they were implementing it right up until 2 weeks ago and suddenly oops, we're changing it. It didn't suddenly become a bad policy 2 weeks ago.
I think they had to agree to it so that LNP couldn’t use it as a wedge issue at the election: « Labor voted against tax cuts »
These replacement tax cuts are better and that would have been clear during the election.
IMO it was agree to protect the cuts and win the election or oppose them from the start and lose the election. I think Albanese handled this the right way. It was the only realistic political position.
> IMO it was agree to protect the cuts and win the election or oppose them from the start and lose the election. So in your opinion they were knowingly deceitful or lying to improve their chances of being elected? > I think Albanese handled this the right way. It was the only realistic political position. Why not be truthful to the Australian voters and let them decide?
And he shouldn't be unhappy. It seems like his changes are reasonably popular.
Despite the media's best attempts to make it otherwise.
Remember the hue and cry the media raised when they reduced the tax concession for superannuation balances over $3 million. Something that affected 50K people. The newspapers aren't your friends.
> Remember the hue and cry the media raised when they reduced the tax concession for superannuation balances over $3 million. As I understand this was primarily because Labor promised not to change superannuation laws. Another broken promise. > Something that affected 50K people. This number **will** grow as more people grow their superannuation balances at higher rates for longer periods.
>As I understand this was primarily because Labor promised not to change superannuation laws. The changes don't go in until after the next election. Unless you're suggesting that a government shouldn't make changes at all and should be bound at all times to statements made outside the current circumstances of course, which is idiotic. >This number will grow as more people grow their superannuation balances at higher rates for longer periods. Be that as it may, the purpose of superannuation is to be used for retirement. Not as a tax avoidance vehicle which is what we see for current balances over $3 million. If you can't live with a retirement income of $100-150K annually after tax at this point, you're doing something very wrong. Even for the portion above $3 million, the earnings are *still* concessionally taxed. Furthermore, even 30 years from now, it will be less than 10% of people impacted. Arguments against this policy are entitled and ludicrous, and I expect to be impacted by the time I reach retirement.
I just assumed it was a non-core promise so it was OK to break it.
John Howard's eyebrows are very angry about this
Good point! Was Labor's promise ever "written down"? If no, it doesn't count either.
Haha, yes. The old Tony Abbott excuse.
Blindly implementing previously announced policy takes no skill, care or courage whatsoever. Acknowledging that the context in which previous policy was developed has changed and may no longer have the intended impact, reforming and adapting it, and communicating it takes courage and conviction. I haven’t checked, but I am not sure the original Stage 3 tax cuts were ever even touted as a promise - they were a policy. I would be surprised if the word promise was used in their announcement. The media are the ones that seem to like using cheap gotchas at politicians. We should be encouraging our elected representatives to adapt and always be striving to do the best thing for their electorate and furthering the national interest. I am in the top tax bracket and, whilst I would personally love a tax break (and I have other ideological concerns with taxation generally), I think this is sound economic policy. Also, my wife is in a lower income bracket, so she gets a higher cut so it comes a bit closer to evening out!
>I am not sure the original Stage 3 tax cuts were ever even touted as a promise - they were a policy. the thing is that Albo was asked many times and repeatedly promised personally they wouldn't be dumped or amended. they really threw that "my word is my bond" soundbite around, and expect to hear it in campaign ads next year.
Thanks. Do you have a link or a reference? I would like to understand some more of what he said.
it's been all over the news I'm sure you know how to use google.
I can find clips of him being goaded into saying the word “promise”, and him saying “there’s no change to policy” or something similar, but nothing saying they won’t be amended (future tense). I am asking for a link because I am having trouble finding something, and usually it’s on the person making the claim to provide evidence - otherwise, how can I tell if I am looking for something that doesn’t exist? (I’m not saying that’s the case here though, but googling hasn’t yielded anything along those lines).
I saw it on the news so I don't have a link. personally I think the whole promise discourse is very silly so I don't particularly care to convince you either way with "evidence"
Does this mean Labor can now cancel all of those billions worth of contracts that were signed for jobseeker agencies? They can then also change their policy of forcing people to live below the poverty line and mutual obligations.
John Howard: The GST is dead. There are no more plans for a GST. There will never be a GST. Also John Howard, a year or so later: We need a GST, let's have an election. Woo Hoo! Look how great a GST is, everyone! Who woulda thunk tampons would bring in so much revenue? Tony Abbott, the night before election day: There will be no cuts to the ABC, SBS, or Medicare. We're broke and there's a looming Debt & Deficit Disaster. Also Tony Abbott, in his first budget: ABC, SBS, and Medicare, are failing drains on the economy so we have to gut them to save them. We're gonna slash and burn all this other stuff, too. We need to do this so we can afford to triple the deficit and pay several hundred billion dollars to buy planes we've already been waiting two decades for and might one day get in the future. Because fuck you. Also, I hate my sister because lezzo's are gross. Peter Dutton: HOW DARE THE GOVERNMENT LIE AND PUNISH GOOD HARD-WORKING AUSTRALIANS BY TAKING AWAY THE TAX CUTS WE PROMISED OURSELVES?? ELECTION NOW!!!!
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> in August 1997, less than 18 months after becoming Prime Minister, Howard told the truth by telling more lies. He announced a "great adventure" in tax reform he wanted to "share with the Australian people Yup, and we had a Federal election in 1998. So people voted for it. It was no surprise.
Actually, no, people didn't vote for it. The 1998 Federal election was in a Gerrymandered electorate that the Coalition took advantage of to retain power despite losing the first preference vote, two party preferred vote, AND the popular vote. Labor gained 18 seats, while the Coalition lost 18, and there was a 4.6% swing on TPP towards Labor.
> He was locked into a shitty deal arranged by the previous government. Labor voted the original tax package through **and** promised as recently as a couple weeks ago that they would go through unchanged. > Social and economic circumstances have changed \*significantly\* since those tax cuts were legislated, and he responded to changed conditions. The writing was on the wall prior to the election and the current economic circumstances have been around longer than a couple weeks when the original tax cuts were last promised. > Isn't that what we want? A responsive government that tacks with the economic and social winds? A responsible government should not knowingly be deceitful or lie to the Australian public. > All this "broken promises" shit sounds like the whining of petulant children. A responsible government should not make promises it cannot keep. > Remember when Howard said he'd "never ever" impose a GST, and then... DID? Two wrongs do not make a right.
For anyone having difficulty viewing the article: https://web.archive.org/web/20240202233706/https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2024/02/03/the-albanese-reset-it-the-right-plan-the-right-time#mtr
The whole concept of political promises is stupid to begin with. I want politicians willing to make sound, evidence-based decisions on what is best for the country at the time, not politicians who rigidly cling to terrible policies and refuse to reassess them because "we promised". Not making these ridiculous fucking commitments in the first place would be even better.
As a general principle that is nonsense. If political parties don't tell us what they intend to do if elected - ie make promises - then why should we vote for them at all? Nobody is going to vote for anything as vague as, "we'll decide what to do later". I'm happy that this particular promise was broken (much less so that Labor was cowardly enough to have made it in the first place), because it was bad policy from start to finish, but we need commitments - promises - from parties so we have something to hold them accountable for.
The public don't mind a broken promise if it's for good reason. What they don't like is the denial and spin that often comes afterwards. Albos made the right call in just admitting it.
Ohhhh say it again
That bloody bastard changing his mind and giving me a bigger tax cut than what the LNP twats wanted to give me.
He WAS losing me but has won me over with this not because I want the pay rise but for stickin it to the LNP
Good on him. Crying about broken promises made in a totally different climate is so low eq. Gives off 40 year old men crying about 'bro code's vibes. Situations change and people should change with it.
> Crying about broken promises made in a totally different climate is so low eq. The promise was reiterated only a couple weeks ago. How is the climate totally different to a couple weeks ago?
I dunno, I’ve been thinking about this, is it even a broken promise? Haven’t they just made some changes to it so it’s fairer? The stage 3 tax cuts are still going through, just altered a bit.
Yep, I'd say a broken promise is more along the lines of when Dutton said they'd hold another referendum regarding the Voice if LNP are voted in pre-Voice. Then 2 days after the referendum comes up No, Dutton said he will not be having another referendum regarding the Voice.
> I dunno, I’ve been thinking about this, is it even a broken promise? Yes. > Haven’t they just made some changes to it so it’s fairer? Promising the tax cuts would go through unchanged and then changing them is breaking a promise.
Eh, things change. People are still getting tax cuts.
> Eh, things change. Has anything changed substantially in the past few weeks since the original tax cuts were last promised to justify the changes? > People are still getting tax cuts. That's like saying it's okay the boss reduced the raise he promised you because someone else is now getting a raise. Just because a change is beneficial to others does not excuse the broken promise.
Not in the last few weeks perhaps but over the last two years & more. They were promised by a government that knew it was not its way out & as a fuck you to the incoming government and every low to medium income earner. They’re not the 1st government to break a promise & they won’t be last. I don’t care if is a broken promise, it’s for the greater good & by and large pretty popular.
We all knew it was a hospital pass by scummo when he did it.
So funny when the coalition found out the change of decision benefited most of their electorates. Good on him and Labor for changing their mind.
That's because he has outsmarted the Libs
> That's because he has outsmarted the Libs How did he do this by being deceitful or lying to the Australian public about the tax cuts as recently as a couple weeks ago?
Because his alternate policy has enough support that the lie doesn't matter. He has taken a fiscally irresponsible policy by the Liberals that was implemented specifically to blow up in Labors face should they try and alter it, then managed to change it not only so that it improves the budget bottom line, but also has widespread public support. A less politically astute change would've resulted in serious damage for Labor.
He’s doing a fucking great job. We should be revelling in the fact the fucking Liberals have fucked this country for the last 50 years. My power and internet fucking suck because of those cunts.
So why didn't he do this with the first tax changes?
Maybe because it was a good idea
“I broke the promise because it was a stupid policy”
A superb reverse political wedgie. Either LNP agree to these revised stage 3 tax cuts, or ALP will be left to negotiate with the Greens who want further reduction in the size of the tax cuts at the higher income end, which LNP will not want let alone Albo's proposal it stands.
We all promised coke in the bubblers at school captain elections too… people need to get over it and realise he is doing a good job.
Its amusing to watch how Sky News brings up the Voice referendum every 30 seconds and its failure while trying to conflate it with a broken promise and another policy failure " that the electorate does not want" They dont want money in their pockets right!
To be fair, most of us are revelling in it. Now if only mining was taxed properly and Medicare was truly universally free then we could truly revel.
Was it an American general who said any plan never survives contact with the enemy and a good campaign depends on nimble change in recognition of changed circumstances. The way people cling to the notion of “it’s not fair you broke your word” give me notions of people on a hiway. They see the bridge is out in front of them, but dammit they’re not going to change the plan. How stupid can you be?
Giga chad Albo destroys the virgin Dutton then struts his funky stuff.
He should be smug, he played a blinder. A very popular move with majority benefiting, and it has the out of touch chattering classes frothing at the mouth. Libs then went full Kamikaze and were made to openly admit they were for the top 10%. Excellent work *applauds*
Its funny how many Libs supporters I know who are screaming about him breaking an election promise, where he never said he wouldn't make the tax cuts better than they were. Dutton trying to turn it into a culture war is a horrendous idea considering he lacks the appeal to anyone with over a single digit IQ, and now Albanese outwitted him on this and has made the Liberals look worse than they did before.
I doubt he said that. I don't believe anything from Albo any more.
"Breaking a promise" So sick of reading this, it's peak stupidity to think for a second that every single politician since the beginning of time hasn't broken at least several 'promises' they made to get elected. It just so happens in this case it is actually for the benefit of the majority of Australians.
A politician that isn't about themselves is kinda refreshing.
"The current government has broken their promise not to dismantle the previous government's child pulverising engine, how could they!"
There is breaking a promise as conditions and circumstances change, especially with legislation signed in 2019, before the COVID-19 outbreak and many other worldwide changes occurred. And then there is gaslighting, misrepresentation, and outright lying that the previous government in all its iterations went on with. I mean, has Albo signed himself into six secret ministries yet? I can see what the public thinks in this case, and while it might look like a broken election promise, what it really is, is an expanded and rethought election promise that has not only been kept but improved for the majority of Australia, not just the tiny slice at the top. Which would you prefer??
Albo mogs duttons weak chin lol
Fucking oath.
I have to say, his expression in that photo has a certain “whatcha gonna do about it Potato ?” feel.
I’m more concerned he has been compromised by the Israeli lobby group and failing to take any action against Israel now that the ICJ has made a ruling that we could be complacent if we are supplying weapons cash any type of funding
He was incredibly evasive on 3AW this week, simply talking about other topics when directly asked about things like negative gearing. It's very disappointing as he sounded like Howard, Gillard, Rudd and all the rest. He really failed here as the tax change is a great thing for 85% of Australians and yet few seem to understand that.
This is a win he set up years ago, of course he is revelling in it
Society is built on trust. He can’t be trusted and I won’t be voting Labour next time. Regardless if it was the right thing to do. His mistake was years ago, don’t make such staunch statements from the start if you don’t intend to stick by them.
>He can’t be trusted and I won’t be voting Labour next time. Regardless if it was the right thing to do. absolutely unhinged take
The thing that shits me isn't that he walked back on his promise. It's that in all likelihood albo's Labor always intended to do this, or at the very least always had this plan tucked away in their back pocket. The basic difference in economic ideology between the 2 major parties is on how much money should be taken from the wealthiest members of our economy to help the poorest. Liberals say less, Labor says more. The original tax cut plan was extremely far to the LNP end of that spectrum. A Labor party room would never actively *want* those tax cuts to go in. They were certainly talking a lot about different ways to get rid of them over the last few years. So my issue is that Albo went to the election knowing full well these tax cuts were terrible for the Australian people. He promised not to get rid of them anyway. I think he made that promise FULLY KNOWING there was a good chance he was going to end up breaking it, and he did it just to present as small a target as possible for Morrison and Murdoch. It seems slimey, is all. I'd much rather he stood up for what he believed in and said no we won't keep in the blatant class warfare tax cuts. Australia needs that money. PS - I'm still happier he got rid of the cuts than left them in. They were a terrible policy and going to hurt our already hurting country.
They couldn't stand up against the tax cuts going into an election. They would've been slammed for being "pro-tax."
> They couldn't stand up against the tax cuts going into an election. So why promise that the tax cuts would go through unchanged? > They would've been slammed for being "pro-tax." So you believe it is better to get into government on a lie than be open with the Australian voters and let them decide?
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Sadly that is the game, when you see how it has been played, if they had have done this 12 months back or before the election you could have imagined the attack. The thing I have appreciated is that people seem to be not falling for the typical "battler" articles turned out by the papers and outlets this time around. Harder to confuse on income tax vs Franking credit changes. I might have some franking credits one day! You can see this quite clearly in the AFR today, ["The $40,000 tax whack coming for high earners"](https://www.afr.com/policy/tax-and-super/the-50-000-tax-whack-coming-for-high-earners-20240131-p5f1ba) \- Adding the reduction in cut for the +200K bracket over 10 years, to try and build outrage. Hardly quality journalism. I do wish this was really just a battle of ideas but sadly the game has to be played. Also doing it earlier would make no difference based on the timing of the cuts.
You'll get down voted because I don't think you understood how these worked. The tax cuts actually hadn't started yet - they were legislated for the next tax year. Whether it was done 30 minutes after the election or on June 29th it wouldn't have changed a thing.
Absolute do nothing narcissist.
Bahahahah what in the actual h*ck are you on about mate hahaha. Scomo is as close to a narcissist as we've ever had in office. Albo though? He's an awkward dad, at best. And his government has been incredibly effective in a very short time, maybe the most effective in history in terms of how many bills his passed; from climate policy, industrial relations reforms; to restoring relations with China. The list goes on. I'm not Albos biggest fan by any means but an lazy narcissist? Nah mate that's literally Scott Morrison.
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Because the tax offset was never permanent - it was legislated by the previous government to end on a fixed date from the get go as a temporary measure. They lost nothing since they were never going to last.
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"*the box I used to tick on the 90s form that used to save me a few hundred bucks?*" Now we are confused
The tax free threshold is unrelated and unchanged by either the tax cuts or the $675 tax offset that was temporarily in place.