High-income Australians will still receive tax cuts as the government remains committed to managing inequality, Anthony Albanese says.
The prime minister reaffirmed the stage three tax cuts, to come into effect from July 1, will still go ahead.
“The government’s position hasn’t changed … inequality is an issue and the government has looked at ways in which we can improve that position,” he told ABC’s RN on Monday.
Albanese said Labor will continue to look at measures to help Aussies doing it tough in the lead-up to the federal budget.
Social welfare advocates have blasted the tax cuts as unfair as many people battle with a cost-of-living crisis.
But former senior treasury officials have backed the cuts as a way to address bracket creep.
Workers with a taxable income above $45,000 will benefit from the tax cuts, but high-income earners are set to receive the highest gains.
Meanwhile, jobseekers are being put through the wringer as competition for vacancies continues to intensify.
Australian employment marketplace Seek recorded a 0.5% increase in the volume of job ads posted in December — this was only the third increase in 18 months.
Demand for workers remains 17.4% lower than in December 2022 while the number of people fighting for the same position in November rose by 6%.
SEEK ANZ’s managing director Kendra Bank says this demonstrates continued rising competition for job opportunities.
Job ads for education and training workers dropped by 3.5% as part of a 5.9% dip compared to December 2022.
But hospitality and tourism ads, which have been on the decline since August, grew by 3.7%, making it the second highest monthly rise behind consulting and strategy positions, which rose 4%.
However, the overall uptick was also supported by increased demand for blue-collar workers.
Job ads for the trades and services sector grew by 2.2% with employers increasingly searching for labourers, welders and boilermakers, and gardening and landscaping roles — which all experienced increases of 5-8%.
But every sector was posting fewer open positions in December 2023 than the year before, with demand for information and communication technology industry roles dropping by 31.9% compared to the previous year.
Across the nation, demand for employees increased in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, Queensland, NSW and Tasmania while the volume of job ads in the ACT dropped 2.5%, as South Australia fell 0.9% and Victoria slipped 1.7%.
But the number of job ads in every state and territory bar one were below December 2022 levels.
Tasmania, which experienced a 5.6% monthly increase in job openings, was the only state that recorded a higher volume of job ads in December 2023 than the same month a year before.
This comes after the Australian Bureau of Statistics released its unemployment data on Wednesday.
It revealed that job vacancies had dropped 0.7% to 389,000 in the three months to November 2023, which is still 71% higher than the last pre-pandemic figure.
Good to see that cleared up. Albanese reckons there’s not enough inequality, and he’s pressing on with measures to increase it. Bold!
Such candour from a politician is unusual.
Also seems incapable of admitting its bad policy. Keeps digging deeper hole for himself. Given he is one of the highest paid PMs in the world, I suppose he wants his cut.
Why is Albanese so concerned about Australia not doing enough to raise inequality? Is it because we are falling behind? The Guardian has an article today about the release of a new report from Oxfam (and the numbers are of course US$):
So we need to tax wealth – not labour.
My thoughts exactly.
He didn’t say he wanted to increase equality. He said he wanted to improve inequality.
He’s been watching Utopia and Hollowmen…
I thought he watched Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite and failed to pick the parasite myself.
I wonder if those ‘starry-eyed” idealists in what I dubbed “The Crikey Labor Club” have woken up yet to the absolute fraud and sham that the ALP (Alternative Liberal Party) is (and has been for decades). Personally, I think that it is time for the Crikey Labor Club (members of which I recall having a number of rather ‘frank and open exchanges’ with prior to the last federal election, to go into ‘voluntary liquidation’.
Albanese and his crowd can find $368 billion (at the blink of an eyelid) for nuclear-powered submarines; they can easily afford the stage 3 tax cuts, (which, as any half-wit knows, will benefit the ‘big end of town’ far more than anyone else, and then there is the $240 million they could readily find for a sports stadium in Hobart. The Stage 3 tax cuts, by the way, are forecast by The Australia Institute, to cost almost a third of a trillion dollars ($313 billion) over a decade, of which $157.5 billion (50%) will go to those earning more than $180,000 a year.
However, when it comes to finding money for housing, and addressing gross inequalities in education and health care, well, oh, dear, it’s not the right time for this; the budget can’t afford it, or that would be inflationary.
Who do they think they are?
This morning I read in:
The Guardian Monday 15th January, 2024
Three richest Australians’ combined wealth doubles since 2020 at $1.5m an hour – Oxfam
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/15/richest-people-in-australia-most-wealthy-three-doubles-2020-gina-rinehart-andrew-forrest-harry-triguboff?utm_term=65a48398a5adb0c9ea5105f9b8b8622c&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayAUS&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTAU_email
and then we wonder why there are articles such as this in John Menadue’s:
Pearls and Irritations Monday 15th January, 2024
Western democracy: failure of system
By John Queripel
https://johnmenadue.com/western-democracy-failure-of-system/
The only thing that the ALP has going for it is that the LNP is worse.
To make a comment such as your last sentence would require being able to distinguish between the two cheeks of the same orifice – a definition of impossibility.
Also futility and lack of self respect.
Well said
Thanks for your supporting comment Johan. It is much appreciated.
I dunno, Robert. Depends on how you define worse. The LNP are upfront about what they are and whose interests they protect. The ALP aren’t. At all. That makes them worse, in my book. The ALP are a pack of con artists who say one thing and do the opposite, just like their good mates the Democrats in the USA.
I am not going to argue with you for a moment, Kathy. In fact, I will give your post a positive tick!
P&I’s appears to be in decline due to too many faux anti-imperialist non experts writers and grifters following the classic faux left talking points; yet being informed e.g. on Russia – Ukraine by US generalist of the right masquerading as left inc. Mearsheimer (Koch), Sachs (Rockefeller) et al., too easy.
Blame the US for everything, ignore credible experts then follow US faux experts, while suggesting that both Putin vs Ukraine and Xi are anti-imperialist and we’re all sheep following the US; Orwellian doublethink and gaslighting, especially to stymie Biden-Dems for Trump’s GOP.
Can you think of any more catch-phrases, clichés and epithets to muddy further your comment? How about giving us the names and credentials of your ‘experts’?
You don’t get to call the shots when you have nothing to offer; an old conservative authoritarian tactic to avoid facts and analysis, demanding silence?
Further, if you cannot cite anyone of expertise, why would anyone bother?
Implicitly you prefer those supported by RW fossil fuel think tanks over more credible Russia-Ukraine experts locally and globally esp. Europe, found in universities and/or investigative journalism?
Suggests the latter should be avoided in favour of following RW US grifters…… Australians, too easy….
You don’t get to call the shots when you have nothing to offer; an old conservative authoritarian tactic to avoid facts and analysis, demanding silence?
Further, if you cannot cite anyone of expertise, why would anyone bother?
Implicitly you prefer those supported by RW fossil fuel think tanks over more credible Russia-Ukraine experts locally and globally esp. Europe, found in universities and/or investigative journalism?
Suggests the latter should be avoided in favour of following RW US faux ‘experts’ …… Australians’ BS radar not, too easy….
>High-income Australians will still receive tax cuts as the government remains committed to managing inequality, Anthony Albanese says.
Totally. Because ‘managing’ in this country = ‘doing SFA about’
Albo remains firmly committed to ensuring there’s no increase to the current rate of acceleration of our collective decline.
At least until USUKA inevitably blows out to >$1T
At least with AUKUS, we’ll still get to have all that US/UK military nuclear waste… oh, wait…
Legislation enabling this was passed last year with bipartisan grovelling.
Guess which party & individuals voted against.
Well, if he goes through with those stage 3s, he’s finished. Albo wants to be everyone’s mate, no broken promises and a second term in govt. He can forget it if he throws more more money to the already over the top wealthy whose wealth has been spiraling over the past two years and doesn’t help those really struggling. It’s the Greens for me now.
I, and many other women, won’t vote for the Greens again because of their failure to affirm the rights of women.
Which rights would those be? Women tend to be lower income earners, right across their working lifetimes. First they’re forced to take time out of the workforce to raise the kids, then they get to do it all again to care for elderly parents and grandparents- usually for much, much longer than it took to get the kids to an independent stage and right at the time women are at the peak of their earning potential.
Rights without economic security don’t mean a great deal, oddly enough.
How’s voting for Labor working out for you?
And me
Who knows what ALP internal strategy is, but bracket creep and inflation may lessen negative impacts, and on the bright side, could open the door for removing many negative gearing tax breaks on property, used by high income PAYE types.
Why can we not have an indexed, progressive, taxation system that never falls foul of bracket creep?
Works in the USA and Canada. Adjusted on an annual basis.
I guess the first objection would be it is more complicated, though that is hardly a good argument. It would also, on being proposed and introduced, attract all the usual nonsense, controversy and (baseless) fear around anything seen as novel or different, so even a government that felt like doing it might decide it had better things to get on with. Another debate, once the idea was accepted in principle, would be on choosing what exactly to index against. Median wage? Average wage? Cost of living? Inflation, adjusted in what way?
The cynical explanation for not adopting the proposal is obvious — all treasurers, no matter what they say in public, are big fans of bracket creep. They love the extra revenue it accrues at little political cost (because it happens automatically), and they can also from time to time portray themselves as heroic champions of the over-taxed people when they tackle bracket creep with tax cuts. What’s not to like?
Firstly because it’s an easy way to increase taxes collected, which a large number of people who don’t understand the monetary system (but really, really should) think is important to “pay for” stuff.
Secondly, because then bracket creep could not be raised every election cycle as an issue.
I remember back in the treasurer Costello days that a flat rate tax was being pushed heavily, to the point that many commentators were calling it inevitable. Phew, escaped that one. Part of the “case” for a flat rate tax by those in favour of it was, that if you tried to tax the rich too hard [boo hoo] they’d find ways to avoid the tax.
When it comes to arguing about tax, equity almost never gets a mention.