Those of us with long enough memories will remember the ALP carrying on at great length in the years around 2002 that the Howard government was the “highest taxing government in Australia’s history”. Unfortunately enough, it was true.
Imagine, therefore, my surprise when I saw that Anthony Albanese, a Shadow Minister, arguing on Friday that Howard “spent” too much money on tax cuts.
The gall of it was astounding. Not only did it contradict the arguments of the ALP at the time, it also contradicted the arguments of Craig Emerson as recently as 2011 that taxes were at record highs under Howard. And of course, it murdered the definition to talk of tax cuts as “spending”.
Mr Albanese was arguing that some of funds that were “spent” on tax cuts instead should have been spent on infrastructure. Great idea. What we really need is more A-class infrastructure such as the ALP’s pink batts, the Coalition’s Alice to Darwin railway, the Magnesium smelter near Rockhampton (remember that one?) – funded by both the Coalition and the ALP – or the ALP’s National Broadband Network with net costs that are $22 billion more than the market-based alternative.
If this wasn’t enough, on Monday we had Tony Burke, the Shadow Finance Minister, arguing that current tax levels are currently too low compared to 2002. We’ve been over this territory before: comparisons can easily be made to any year; my suggestion is to compare to 2011: if we do this, we must have a tax cut of $40 billion.
Mr Burke was also contradicting the many arguments by his party that taxes were too high in 2002.
Instead of this nonsense, if we are to compare tax levels, they should be done to averages across years, and on that basis the current tax level is well above the 10 year average and about equal to the 20, 30 and 40 year average.
In truth, the ALP was on a winner with its earlier arguments that taxes were too high in and around 2002. They should stick to that argument and not try to put it into the memory hole.
Home > Commentary > Opinion > ALP’s memory loss
ALP’s memory loss
Imagine, therefore, my surprise when I saw that Anthony Albanese, a Shadow Minister, arguing on Friday that Howard “spent” too much money on tax cuts.
The gall of it was astounding. Not only did it contradict the arguments of the ALP at the time, it also contradicted the arguments of Craig Emerson as recently as 2011 that taxes were at record highs under Howard. And of course, it murdered the definition to talk of tax cuts as “spending”.
Mr Albanese was arguing that some of funds that were “spent” on tax cuts instead should have been spent on infrastructure. Great idea. What we really need is more A-class infrastructure such as the ALP’s pink batts, the Coalition’s Alice to Darwin railway, the Magnesium smelter near Rockhampton (remember that one?) – funded by both the Coalition and the ALP – or the ALP’s National Broadband Network with net costs that are $22 billion more than the market-based alternative.
If this wasn’t enough, on Monday we had Tony Burke, the Shadow Finance Minister, arguing that current tax levels are currently too low compared to 2002. We’ve been over this territory before: comparisons can easily be made to any year; my suggestion is to compare to 2011: if we do this, we must have a tax cut of $40 billion.
Mr Burke was also contradicting the many arguments by his party that taxes were too high in 2002.
Instead of this nonsense, if we are to compare tax levels, they should be done to averages across years, and on that basis the current tax level is well above the 10 year average and about equal to the 20, 30 and 40 year average.
In truth, the ALP was on a winner with its earlier arguments that taxes were too high in and around 2002. They should stick to that argument and not try to put it into the memory hole.
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