Labor walks a fine line on tax cuts ahead of crucial cabinet meeting this morning
While Albanese’s media team spent much of Monday afternoon hosing down reports they were about to overhaul the stage three tax cuts, Capital Brief has been told that a change will be put to cabinet this morning.
Where is the line between being clever and cynical?
Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers may be pondering this question after weeks of carefully crafted responses on whether they will tinker with the stage three tax cuts, due to come into effect on July 1.
As revealed by Capital Brief yesterday, the Prime Minister and Treasurer have been weighing up whether to overhaul the tax cuts as a means to fund more relief to those on lower and middle incomes. The potential changes, which have yet to be explained to the public, will go to cabinet this morning.
To the untrained eye, this may seem completely contradictory to Albanese’s repeated insistence that “the government hasn’t changed its position”. But a government doesn’t change its position on something like this until it is approved by cabinet. This means he was telling the truth… technically.
But what about Albanese’s quote on Triple M Adelaide only last Wednesday that “tax cuts will happen in July”? Look closer. He did not promise that “the” stage three tax cuts in their current form will go ahead at all. He merely promised that tax cuts, in some form, will happen.
