Labor to oppose Medicare levy for lower and middle earners

Opposition leader Bill Shorten has said Labor will oppose the budget’s increase in the Medicare levy hitting taxpayers on incomes under A$87,000.

And he has flagged an ALP government would reimpose the deficit levy on high income earners, that automatically expires on June 30. “Labor will not support spending $19.4 billion on the wealthiest 2% of Australians”, he said in his budget reply on Thursday night.

Labor says that a combination of the pared back levy rise and the deficit levy would deliver an extra $4.5 billion over ten years “without putting the burden onto families earning modest incomes”.

The combination would mean that under Labor’s proposal those on incomes of more than $180,000 would pay a 49.5% marginal tax rate.

After the opposition hedged its position last week, Shorten has confirmed a Labor government would put an extra $22 billion into schools above the amount the government has pledged, going back to the original ALP plan.

In an extensive attack on key budget measures, Shorten said Labor will oppose the government’s cuts to universities, its proposed increase in student fees, and the change in the repayment threshold that “hits women, Indigenous Australians and low-income earnest the hardest”.

In power, it would reverse the government’s new cuts to TAFE.

Labor would also oppose the budget plan to give a tax break for people saving for their first home. Shorten said this was a “cruel hoax”, a joke and an insult, representing just $565 for each first home.

He said the 0.5% boost in the Medicare levy – imposed to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme and to take effect from mid-2019 – would affect every Australian down to an income of $21,000.

It would mean a worker on $55,000 would pay $275 extra a year, while someone on $80,000 would face an extra $400.

“Labor cannot support making people on modest incomes give up even more of their pay packets”, he said. The ALP would only support the levy rise for those in the top two tax brackets.

Shorten said the budget “fails the fairness test” and it “fails the generational test”.

It was a “budget of big government, higher tax and more debt” and “devoid of values altogether”.

He dismissed the government’s measures to protect Medicare, saying that Malcolm Turnbull “only discovers his heart when he feels fear in it”.

The opposition leader was at pains to counter the widespread observation in commentary that this was “a Labor budget”.

He confirmed Labor would not oppose the budget’s tax on big banks, which has sparked a furious reaction from the banking sector.

But it was worried that “the weakness of this government will turn $6 billion tax on the banks into a $6 billion charge on every Australian with a bank account or a mortgage”.

The banks knew they could run over the top of this weak prime minister, he said.

“He’s giving them a levy with one hand, a tax cut with the other and a free pass for bad behaviour. I’ll give them a royal commission.”

He said that “if the banks pass on a single dollar of this tax to Australian families then that should be the end of this treasurer, this prime minister and this government.”

Shorten said that since budget night Labor had identified $1 billion in measures it would not support, including the $170 million set aside for a marriage equality plebiscite to which the Senate has refused to agree.

Earlier, in question time, the opposition extracted from the government the fact that the cost of its ten year corporate tax cut – the first part of which is already legislated - would be $65 billion over the upcoming decade, compared with nearly $50 billion over a decade when announced a year ago.

In his budget reply, Shorten said “This is a recipe for fiscal recklessness on a grand scale. It is a threat to Australia’s triple A credit rating – and therefore a threat to every Australian mortgage holder”.

Labor’s plan to close tax loopholes that let big companies shuffle money internationally would deliver $5.4 billion over a decade.

Shorten announced that a Labor government would cap at $3,000 the amount people could deduct for the management of their tax affairs. Although affecting only one in 100 taxpayers this would save $1.3 billion over the medium term.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann called on Shorten to submit his speech to the Parliamentary Budget Office for costing.

“If Bill Shorten is serious he needs to come clean with the Australian people about how much bigger the deficit would be over the forward estimates period as a result of the announcements that he has made”, Cormann said.

He said Labor’s numbers did not add up and it would put the triple A credit rating at risk.

Social Services Minister Christian Porter said that Labor had not outlined enough to fund the NDIS.