“Australian people have moved on from that, they are interested in a plan for transitioning the economy”, Morrison said.
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Australians know it is no easy task to secure jobs and growth in a highly competitive, volatile and uncertain global economy.
Despite the challenges and the naysayers, we are already making it happen.
The ruling Liberal Party-led coalition government is running neck and neck with the Labor Party, latest opinion polls show, putting Mr Turnbull in a tough position as he seeks his first mandate since wresting the top job from the hugely unpopular Tony Abbott in a leadership coup a year ago. “Over 97% of SME employ fewer than 20 people so the sector is crucial for job creation”.
Treasurer Scott Morrison claims he has not delivered “just another budget” and suggests his first budget foray represents a wider economic plan. The changes to work for the dole save about $494m and will help fund the new $751.7m Youth Jobs PaTH – Prepare, Trial, Hire program.
“So often, successful technology ventures have started by solving a complex problem for governments”, Morrison said.
“This means combating tax avoidance, especially by multinationals, with new measures to ensure everyone pays the tax they should on what they earn in Australia, not avoid tax by shifting their profits offshore”, he said. The government will also increase access to greater tax concessions for these businesses and CGT concessions for companies with less than $2 million in turnover.
The government is cutting several tax concessions for the wealthiest Australians saving for their retirement.
The company tax rate for businesses with annual turnover less than A$10 million will be lowered to 27.5 percent, effective from July 1.
Nevertheless Labor ramped its election tax pitch by highlighting that the wealthy with income of more than a million dollars a year will get a tax cut of nearly $17,000 from July 1.
The middle tax threshold will increase from $80,000 to $87,000, saving $6 a week for people earning $80,000 or over per year. The treasurer has also hinted he will be looking to tackle “bracket creep”, where earnings do not keep up with tax rates, and someone earning a little more gets pushed into the next tax bracket without their standard of living increasing.
Mr Morrison told the Tax Institute that a major overhaul of superannuation taxation in the budget, which mostly affected wealthy individuals, was required to make the system more sustainable. Morrison says these changes will affect only the top 3% of superannuation members. The government will also establish a savings fund for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
The net effect of the two campaign narratives, now that the government has also neutralised a number of the Opposition’s budget initiatives by stealing them, is that the defining differences between the two alternative governments have become particularly stark. We are achieving this by policies that continue to control spending. Payments as a share of GDP will fall from 25.8% in 2015-16 to 25.2% in 2019-20.
It came as the government released Treasury modelling disputing the potential $47 billion in revenue Labor’s proposed cigarette tax hike would bring in, instead showing it would raise only $27 billion – a $19 billion shortfall.
The economic plan might never be realized with a federal election to be held on July 2.
Morrison said: “of course we would like to do more, but this is what we can afford today”. “This is a very sensitive time”. It may be wise not to put too much faith in that date as modelling from the treasury has predicted a rapid return to surplus a couple of times.
“This budget locks in a tax which will deliver a negative result for Australia’s tourism industry and which will drive our backpacker visitors into the arms of our New Zealand competitors”, said Peter Shelley, managing director ATEC.
Having set this critical direction and having laid out this plan, we must now commit to stay the course.
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“Education is not merely an election platform, the future of Australia’s poorest and most vulnerable children is at stake”.
