New Treasurer Scott Morrison has given a strong indication the Federal Government will be making more spending cuts in an effort to return the budget to surplus.
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That all changed after last week’s leadership coup in Canberra.
The treasurer earlier had a briefing with Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens. Mr Morrison said he would drive a housing affordability package in partnership with the states that would release more land for home construction.
“The key change in politics in the last two weeks is that we may well, and hopefully have, seen a shift from that combative phase, into a more optimistic phase”.
There have been more than a thousand submissions and at least one stakeholder has spent $500,000 on tax advice to inform its submission.
Mr Morrison said he was only interested in reforms that would help people to work, save and invest.
This would help grow those sectors of the economy that will contribute more to the economy as the resources boom moves to the slower production phase.
“And we are one of the smaller spenders”, the CEO said.
“And that means that other parts of the economy need to take up the slack that has been left behind and that means diversifying, particularly, where we have got opportunities in the services area”. We have invested tens of thousands of man hours.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said he was sceptical when the Liberal Party started talking about lower taxes.
“Of course I’m aware of what the various individual prescriptions have been and what’s been discussed and considered and I think that’s a fairly open discussion”.
FINANCE Minister Mathias Cormann says he is working with new Treasurer Scott Morrison to deliver the mid-year budget review in December.
“When we are in a position to release it, we will”, added Mr Corman.
Morrison, in his first major outing, deployed several of the Abbott government’s formulations about economic policy – a desire for “lower, fairer, simpler taxes”, and the focus on cutting spending rather than the alternative, pursuing the expenditure reductions combined with revenue raising which a number of economic experts believe is required to achieve long term fiscal sustainability.
“We know that they increased the income tax that people pay, they’ve put on new taxes on a range of items”.
Mr Turnbull’s paper argued for a flatter personal tax rate system, with a top marginal rate of either 35¢ or 40¢ in the dollar.
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“Expenditure as a percentage of GDP is over 26 per cent, which is where it was at the height of the GFC [Global Financial Crisis]”, he said.
