Albo’s massive call on GST tax change

By Jessica Wang

Outlining his economic vision for his second term of government at Australia’s Economic Outlook in Sydney, which was co-hosted by The Australian and Sky News, the Prime Minister said consumption taxes like GST did not fit in with Labor’s agenda.

The 10 per cent tax is applied to most goods and services and remained at that level since it was introduced in 2000.

“It’s not something that we have given any consideration to,” he told Sky’s Andrew Clennell.

“I’m a supporter of progressive taxation. Consumption taxes, by definition, are regressive in their nature. So that’s something that you know doesn’t fit with the agenda.”

While he didn’t commit to specific changes on income tax, Mr Albanese said it would also be his preference that “income taxes (are) as low as possible, and wages (are) as high as possible”.

Mr Albanese also said tax reform would play an “important part” in ensuring the private sector and small business was equipped to drive economic growth and jobs, with the Labor acknowledging that “government should be a driver of growth – but not the driver of growth”.

Adapting and developing new technologies like AI, “eliminating frustrating overlap” between local, state and federal regulations, strengthening domestic supply chains and ensuring female participation in the workforce were other key priorities.

“Our government wants you to be able to resume your rightful place as the primary source of growth in our economy,” he said.

The renewed commitment follows criticisms from the business community that Labor’s first-term industrial relations policies like Same Job Same Pay had hampered businesses growth.

However Mr Albanese called on business leaders, civil society and union chiefs, to work together at Labor’s upcoming productivity round table in August in order to “build broad agreement for action”.

“Because very often the public debate about change in our economy is conducted only in terms of dire warnings about what the consequences for Australia will be if we get it wrong,” he said.

“In order to build the broadest possible support for substantive economic reform, we should focus on what we can achieve by getting it right.”

Mr Albanese was also asked about the progress on Australia seeking a tariff exemption, and said that he does not believe levees on general Australian imports to the US would exceed 10 per cent.

Australia has also been subjected to blanket aluminium tariffs of 25 per cent and a recently doubled 50 per cent levy on aluminium.

Asked if the general tariff of 10 per cent would remain on Mr Trump’s July 9 deadline for negotiations, Mr Albanese said: “I assume that would be the case”.

While his highly-anticipated face-to-face meeting with US President Donald Trump will likely not occur until September, when he travels to India for a meeting with Quad leaders.

Mr Albanese said he was “confidence” or a “constructive” meeting.

“We know that no country has a better tariff… level than 10 per cent. We’ll continue to put our case as we do, as I did,” he said.

“We continue to be engaged with our American friends, but they have a different position on tariffs. I have said that’s an act of economic self harm. I stick to that.”

Mr Albanese also doubled down on beliefs that the AUKUS security pact with the US would be honoured, despite the current review undertaken by the US administration.

“AUKUS is a good deal for Australia, and it’s a good deal for the United States. We are contributing to the industrial capacity in the United States right now, we need to, I think, be really proud of ourselves,” he said.

“We’re not people who don’t pay our own way.”

In response to the speech, Coalition spokesman for small business Tim Wilson was critical of the commitment to the private sector, and called on Labor to scrap Labor’s flagged super tax.

“The only way he is going to be able to deliver for small business is to actually address the root cause of the problems,” he said, naming issues like over-regulation, and reducing taxes,” he told Sky.

“A really simple good way to do it is to stop his plan for a family savings tax on unrealised capital gains, which explicitly hits unsold assets in superannuation, particularly for small businesses.”

When asked during the event, Mr Albanese continued to back the super tax, stating Labor had put the tax forward in its last term, and that the tax would impact just “half a per cent of people”.

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