Media Watch

gives trophies for plagiarism and for gullibility in the media, but
apparently not for downright dishonesty. If they ever introduce one, a
prime contender would be Saturday’s front page story in The Age on tax cuts, with its bold headline “Rich would get richer.”

The
basis of the story is a study showing that “lowering the top threshold
on its own” would benefit the already well-off, “bringing about a major
shift in the distribution of Australia’s after-tax wealth.” But has
anybody ever proposed doing that?

The whole point of the
proposals put forward by Malcolm Turnbull and others is that a cut in
the top marginal rate would be funded by broadening the tax base and
eliminating a variety of rorts and deductions, with the aim of
improving equity overall. But it is midway down the third column before
The Age quotes Turnbull pointing this out.

There are
legitimate questions that can be raised about this sort of
simplification: whether its proponents are serious; whether, even if
they are, it would work in practice; and whether, even if it did, it
would counter the equity effects of cutting the top rate. But The Age thinks it can ignore them by pretending the issue doesn’t exist.

The tax debate needs serious analysis, not populist rabble-rousing. Has Neil Mitchell already taken over at The Age?