It’s been two months since Anthony Albanese came into office and he is still working his way through what was left by the previous inhabitant. At any given press conference, the PM is apt to say something like “My government has not made this decision; this is a decision that was inherited,” but it’s starting to wear thin — even if true.
To help with Labor’s spring cleaning, Crikey has put together an inventory of the policies in Scott Morrison’s “deceased estate”, as told by the PM and his team:
$1 trillion in debt
The balance sheet is being leveraged left, right and centre in the hope that the numbers will do much of the talking. Albanese’s debt doorman, Treasurer Jim Chalmers, has been keen to remind voters that inheritance to the tune of $1 trillion has really hamstrung the government: “There’s no point mincing words about the sorts of conditions that we have inherited. We’ve inherited high and rising inflation and rising interest rates. We’ve inherited falling real wages. And we’ve inherited a trillion dollars in debt with nowhere near enough to show for it.”
Termination of free RATS
On July 31 concession card holders will lose access to their 10 free rapid antigen tests.
Termination of pandemic leave payments
After pushing hard on the line that “emergency payment was designed by the former government”, following a snap national cabinet meeting on Saturday morning the government threw out its inheritance and reinstated COVID-19 compensation for casual workers forced to isolate at home on public health advice. It had ended on June 30. Albanese was keen to labour the point: “And so we will reverse the decision we inherited from the former government to cease this payment.”
Termination of Medicare-funded COVID telehealth
On June 30 patient access to more than 70 GP and non-GP specialist telehealth services were cut in line with a decision by the Morrison government. National cabinet announced a temporary telehealth item for Medicare-backed consultations with GPs to access COVID-19 antivirals. The cover will remain in place until the end of October. Dozens of telehealth items remain unavailable.
Fuel excise tax
The fuel excise tax will be reintroduced in full in September. The former government halved it for a set six months to take the burden of soaring petrol prices off consumers. In an interview with ABC radio, Chalmers said that although Labor would like to extend the cuts, the government’s hands were tied: “We can’t do everything we would like to do when you’ve got a budget which is heaving with a trillion dollars in debt.”
Stage 3 tax cuts stay
There’ll be no change to Morrison’s stage 3 tax cuts set to come in effect in 2024-25. As opposition leader, Albanese lobbied hard against the plan to level tax brackets for low- and high-income earners, but based on a “election promise” the Morrison agenda is here to stay.
JobActive obligations
There’ll be no freeze on mutual obligations for jobseekers under the existing JobActive income support program.
Visas for Ukrainians
The temporary humanitarian visas program for Ukrainians, originally set to expire on June 30, was extended to July 14, and then again to July 31 after a significant backlash over lack of communication of a pre-existing deadline. Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said in a statement: “The initial 30 June expiry date, as set by the previous government, had not been communicated to the Ukrainian Australian community.”
The tax cuts for the wealthy is the most costly and egregious of these “promises’. Albo should do what most new governments do and say:
“Woops, tthe economy is in a much worse state than the Coalition told us. there for first cab off the rank is to can the tax cuts!”
I simply cannot understand this mad rush (from both major parties) to the bottom on taxation when technically, to fund all the social programs needed and in many cases introduced (but stuffed up due to penny pinching, or introduced as Claytons changes).
Responsible govts should be talking UP the idea of higher taxation of the wealthy and businesses to maintain adn even recover some of the social and economic equality it was once known for. Instead of studying successful social-democratic economies (the Scandinavians), 9 years of LNP have been spent chasing the “American Dream” – Heaven help us! Greater inequality, greater social costs, greater crime levels and so it goes on!
Totally agree. But perhaps rather than gunboat diplomacy, ‘softly, softly, catchee monkey’ ?
Um – the tax cuts do not take effect until 2024. And they were enacted by parliament, with ALP support, so they probably need parliament to reverse them. And the new parliament has not actually met yet.
Exactly. To reverse those tax cuts would require not only going against the last government’s policy and passing the necessary legislation, but it would also require Labor to reverse its own support for the cuts, and it would go against Labor’s very clear and unambiguous election promises. Objectively there’s an excellent case for not cutting those taxes, but Labor has done all it could possibly do to make it hard and risky to do. If it does change course, Labor would now stand to pay a political penalty at least as high as the Gillard government did for its carbon price. That too was good policy and fully justified, but I’m sure Labor remembers what reward it got for doing it.
But promises are made to be broken. Just look at the MadMonk’s record.
The “honeymoon period” is the perfect time to be saying “good grief, we didn’t know how bad things were, we have to revisit some of those promises”…
Sadly, as election burley it “works” .
A choice between :-
a) Pooling our sufficiently higher taxes to pay for adequate level of services we all need and expect; or
b) Cutting taxes to buy votes? With a milk-shake and a sanga ethereal pittance – that leaves the individual to fend for themselves, when those big bills come in for services that could have been subsidised with, admittedly higher, taxes?
…. Your typical myopic, mostly politically disengaged, voter can’t seem to resist those shiny lures
‘Look before you reap’, on too many occasions doesn’t seem to occur.
“At any given press conference, the PM is apt to say something like “My government has not made this decision; this is a decision that it was inherited,” but it’s starting to wear thin — even if true.”
But it is not true. The last government made various decisions, obviously, but every time this government decides to do the same or not change what it inherited, it is this government’s decision. Nobody else’s. Nothing to do with the last government. Albanese’s attempts to hide behind Morrison and refuse to take responsibility are shameful and dishonest.
That might have some credibility if parliament had been sitting for long enough to repeal legislation, As that has not yet happened, I suggest your bias is getting in the way of truth.
We are not talking here about any legislation, just simple plain ministerial discretion. Decisions are not legislation.
So Julia you’re getting a bit tired of the statements made the PM about the previous governments decision. Poor you! Frankly I am beyond tired of the very prevalent whinges about our new government that started within a month of the elections. And this is just more whinging. Just how quickly Julia do you think the government can change things? Just how quickly do you think legislation can be developed and passed? It is not even close to 3 months since they were elected. I am tired of impossible expectations. Interestingly I never heard these kinds of whinges when Morrison and his lackeys were in government. Why don’t you do something more useful than this? Report on something real/ It would be appreciated
The new government must be called out when they make bad decisions. Just because you voted for them doesnt make their rubbish calls any better. Just because they arent the coalition doesnt mean they should be given a free ride.
The real problem is Philip Lowe insisting the currency-issuing government must borrow money from private-sector financiers (just like you and me have to do), to whom “the borrowed money must be repaid” – with interest.
Lowe could simply have changed the digits in the bank accounts of locked-down workers, to enable them to pay essential bills during the pandemic.lock-downs…..as opposed to handing out borrowed money to everyone including millionaires – which is (one) cause of the current inflation.episode.
That’s why we now have “a trillion dollar debt which must be repaid” …before the “government can spend any more money”. ..
Madness: if another lock-down is necessary, we will be saddled with a $2 trillion debt…. a debt which in any case treasury could write-off whenever it wished.
Those who are interested in these things (hopefully including Julia Bergin), instead of just accepting enslavement of the electorate by private sector financiers possessing the sole privilege of creating money, should read Stephanie Kelton’s ‘The Deficit Myth’. .
We can all recall the incessant whinging from Barnacle Joyce about the 350 billion that Labor left them.
We certainly can’t blame Albo for doing the same.
Where was your voice when ScottyfromMarketing was spending like a drunken sailor Barnacle?