Deja vu all over again as independents ponder tax reform
The public exhaustion over tax reform may simply be because voters have heard it all before.
Dai Le was about as honest as it gets in Parliament House on Friday, speaking on a panel of independents for left-wing think tank The Australia Institute’s Revenue Summit 2023.
“I’m not an economist, nor have any expertise in tax nor revenue,” Le said. “What I can provide you is … a vignette of my community.”
Her NSW electorate of Fowler is a collection of multicultural outer southwestern Sydney suburbs including Liverpool, Cabramatta and Canley Heights. Its residents are overwhelmingly labourers or service workers and earn a median $1200 a week. With the vast majority of Fowler workers bringing in from $40,000 to $120,000 a year, they’re a group that won’t benefit significantly from the government's upcoming stage three tax cuts.
Le isn’t supportive of these tax cuts in their current form, because they largely benefit high income earners and she'd prefer the tax revenues (worth more than $20 billion a year) instead be redirected to help working class families manage the cost of living crisis.
