With the federal Labor Party’s recent backflip on stage three tax cuts and negative gearing reform, The Echo asked local Labor MP Justine Elliot how such polices align with Labor values, given this supports the Nationals and Liberals’ ideology of only helping the wealthy.
According to the ABC, ‘The “stage 3” tax cuts will see everyone earning between $45,000 and $200,000 paying 30 per cent in tax from 2024’.
‘The changes scrap the 37 per cent tax bracket for those earning above $120,000, making those earners the biggest winners from the cuts’.
It will reduce government funds by $19 billion a year, say the ABC.
Ms Elliot told The Echo, ‘The next federal election is very serious. It’s not a joke or a game and there is so much at stake for our community’.
‘The only sure-fire way to make your vote count is to vote for Justine Elliot and Labor so that Labor can form government to get rid of Scott Morrison.
Greens can’t form govt
‘Don’t waste your vote on Mandy Nolan and the Greens. The fact is the Greens can’t form government and they can’t get rid of Scott Morrison.
‘In terms of tax cuts, an Albanese Labor Government will deliver the same legislated tax relief to more than nine million Australians as currently legislated.
‘Labor in government will maintain the laws on personal income taxes and the existing negative gearing and capital gains taxes.
‘Labor is providing certainty and clarity to Australian working families as we continue to support our country and citizens during these uncertain COVID-19 times. Our focus is on making sure Australia emerges from this pandemic stronger and more resilient – with an economy that works for working families not the other way around.
‘When it comes to the economy, the next election will be a referendum on Scott Morrison’s dangerous and costly vaccines and quarantine failures.
‘His failures on vaccines and quarantines have caused lockdowns 18 months into this pandemic, and those lockdowns are causing billions of dollars in damage to the economy.
‘Over eight long years in government, the Liberals and Nationals’ record is clear in the lives of everyday Australians: stagnant wages, insecure jobs, increased costs for health care and childcare, longer waits to see a GP, and a trillion dollars in debt.
‘Their own Budget forecasts a decline in real wages over the next four years and independent analysis by the McKell Institute shows that Mr Morrison’s policies have made the average worker $13,000 a year worse off.
‘Improving the Budget is all about growing the economy, cracking down on waste and rorts, creating more opportunities for more Australians across all parts of our country, and creating a society that is stronger after COVID-19 than it was before.’
It also means ensuring our broader tax system is fair and sustainable, especially when it comes to making sure that multinational corporations pay their fair share of tax and we will have more to say about that.
‘After delivering eight deficits – including the largest in Australia’s history – the Morrison’s government’s only legacy will be generational debt without a generational dividend’.
Justine concluded, ‘At the next election, make your vote count and vote Justine Elliot and Labor first to actually change the government and improve our community and our country’.
‘So many people in our region are desperately relying on the election of a Labor Government’.
If Labor was a serious contender to be elected it would raise personal income taxes to claw back the $19 billion, abolish negative gearing and capital gains taxes so ordinary Australians who vote Labor would be better off.
Raising income taxes is not fair on many hard workers.
For example someone who decides to work hard, say 60-70 hours a week, and earn say $100,000-$120,000 a year, simply because they choose to work hard, gets absolutely shafted by increased income taxes your proposing. Its not fair on someone trying to get ahead to save for a house etc.
What we need is a progressive tax system that goes up relative to income at a equal ratio, the current brackets are ridiculous. It favours the very wealthy and the big companies.
What we need is to shut the loopholes for big companies and millionaires to avoid paying tax.
Simply ‘raising income taxes’ is not the solution it punishes the middle class.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not for negative gearing but, with interest rates so low at present, I doubt it’s a big driving force in the property boom. There are many factors at play. The development and delivery of policies on the likes of NG and franking credits were so badly botched by the likes of Chris Bowen that there is no way they will be anything but political poison to any party from now on.
I wonder if has occurred to anyone that, if you hold a superannuation account, you too are almost certainly benefitting from franking credits and would continue to do so under these policies.
The tax cuts are a travesty but are legislated and have a broader impact This is not the big deal sell out everybody thinks. You can’t make too many changes from opposition and re-electing an LNP government will just get us further down the road to perdition.
Problem Is Emily Labor took this to 2 elections and unfortunately people didn’t vote for it. Seem good policies but if people don’t vote for it then what’s the point if you aren’t in government.
People don’t vote on individual policies though. Labor’s own report on why they lost the election didn’t mention negative gearing as a driver.
Labor are just Liberal lite at this point. Consider their vote with the Coalition to open up the Beetaloo to gas mining using public money. Consider their stance on refugees. Consider their absence of a plan on the housing crisis. Consider the millions they take from the worst corporations, for example gambling or fossil fuel industries. There are heaps of policies that people will vote for but Labor are completely controlled by their donors. They are not making policy for voters. They do not deserve our vote just for being “not as bad” as the worst Govt in Australian history.
Labor are playing games with Australian’s lives in a desperate attempt to gain power. Make your vote count by voting Green and making it clear you want no more coal contributing to climate change, and no more handouts to the rich while the poor get poorer. Labor and LNP policies are the sad joke.
If the next election “is a referendum on the vaccine rollout”, as Ms Elliot says, why are Labor giving tax cuts to the rich? Her responses to the echos questions don’t even make sense. She doesn’t answer the questions, but merely repeats a string of tired Labor talking points. This is really disappointing to read.
Always hurts when you see Labor MPs suggesting that it’s a ‘waste’ to vote for anyone else first. It’s just an attempt to confuse people in what is an excellent preferential ranked choice voting system, and frankly disrespectful.
Prefer Labor over the LNP but ideally want the Greens to keep Labor accountable? Then vote #1 Greens, and put the LNP below Labor – which is just an effective vote as #1 Labor if your desired outcome is to remove the current government.
Justine Elliot is silenced by the Labor party and has no choice but watch her party become more and more like the liberal government. This party has no plan to help out the smaller guys. We need a leader like the Greens Candidate for Richmond Mandy Nolan who will actually have the freedom to stand up to the liberals and represent the people in her electorate! VOTE 1 MANDY NOLAN
Who actually talks about themselves in the third person?
Politicians who try to hide behind themselves . The major party pollies are specialists in this Art .
What concerns me is the total lack of truth in several of the comments Justine has made here. Mandy Nolan only needs 5% more votes to win, which will create a Greens minority balance of power. This will mean for every incredible motion Adam Bandt brings to the House, Mandy will be there to second it. This means better housing, better equality, action on climate change, all sorts of important things that Labour have just avoided due to the accepting of big donations from fossil fuels and the rich. Simple, vote someone in with integrity whose policies are online and human and environment centred, not based on the highest bidder, Vote for Mandy.
Based on the results of the last election, it seems to me that Mandy Nolan needs approx. 5,000 more primary votes and Justine 5,000 less primary votes. You must be living on another planet to come up with a 5% swing from Justine to Mandy Nolan to put her in front of Justine on primaries. If you think Mandy Nolan will leach votes from the Nationals YOU ARE living on another planet. Justine increased her primary vote while the Greens went backwards. The Greens can offer Richmond nothing and spend their time whinging and Whining about just about everything and anything. The electors of Richmond would be more than aware of the division and dissention among the Byron Greens. And to what faction does Mandy Nolan belong? Is she a ‘Dark Green” or a “Lite Green”? What faction does she support?
A vote for Justine is a vote for a local MP who represents true Labor values, a vote for the Greens goes nowhere.
Dawn Walker achieved a 5% increase in 2016. Mandy can do the same.
Mr. Craigus McVegas and Mr. Neil Taylor; How is voting for the Greens going for you up to date? oh yes, it was the Greens who scuttled Kevin Rudd’s Labor Govt’s Emissions Trading Scheme in the Senate wasn’t it? How much climate change policy have the Greens managed to enact since then? How did that ridiculous, ill-thought-out convoy to Claremont- on the cusp of a Federal election- to protest over the Adani coal mine work out? Except to ensure the Qld. LNP. Held on to every seat in Qld. and ensured the Morrison Govt. another three years in office; and the go ahead for the mine that the Qld Labor Premier was trying to stall until after the election; great result for the Greens wasn’t it, and how many other coal mines have these ill-conceived Greens protests managed to close down? And Australian voters do certainly vote on individual policies especially when they affect their future and their financial wellbeing. So wouldn’t it be a great help if the Greens stopped winging about all these idealistic stop-everything issues and actually helped remove this abhorrent Federal Govt. that is screwing the life out of this country, and preventing any meaningful climate change policy. And replace it with a Labor Govt. that will make a difference even if it’s not up to yours and the Greens purist ideology, but who gives a shit, the Greens only average around 10% of the National vote.
You’re so misinformed, it’s hard to know where to start. The Greens voted against Rudds terrible pollution reduction scheme which excluded the largest polluters, and then did succeed in achieving the world’s best emissions trading scheme in conjunction with the Gillard govt. So not only are your facts wrong, your revised version of history missed that Greens and Labor together took decisive action on carbon pollution and succeeded.
Secondly, the Adani convoy was organised by Bob Brown and by Labor’s own election report, did not cause the election loss.
Thirdly, you clearly don’t understand preferential voting or the power of the crossbench in Australian politics, we don’t have a two party system like USA or UK so a vote for the Greens is never wasted, much as the old parties would have you believe.
I not sure where to start you are so misinformed. The Rudd Emissions Trading Scheme was a simple ‘Cap and Trade’ scheme designed to allow the market to buy and sell ‘carbon credits’ in order to gradually reduce emissions simply because those companies that continued to emit CO2 would find the purchase of carbon credits becoming a cost against their business. No doubt this would increase the cost of goods produced by these companies which in turn meant they could very well become non-competitive.
And so it does not take a rocket scientist to work out that the polluters would no doubt do all what they could to reduce emissions. And as for excluding the largest polluters I’m not sure where that came from however I’m happy to be informed.
On the other hand those companies that reduced their emissions below the level set by the number of permits they held could then on sell them and no doubt add to their bottom line..
Pity, this was not good enough for Senator Bob Brown who like Oliver Twist wanted more and refused to support the scheme in the senate. What a day of infamy. The same Brown who drove up to Queensland almost on election day. One wonders what his motive was.
And so we move on to the ‘Carbon Tax’ which played right into Abbot’s hands. Good one , Greens you did it again.
Labor are letting down their voting base and selling out on their legacy of a fair go. This is an appalling ham fisted attempt to avoid criticism of “Another Labor Tax” by the right “winge” rs. If selling your soul is what you will do to win an election, how can you be trusted to not always make populist choices – LOL what a slippery slope that is. Labors campaign could easily win them power without this ridiculous backing away from core policy. Focus on LNP’s incompetence and how Labor would do things differently, point out their duplicity, nepotism and lack of moral compass. In any case, Mandy Nolan has integrity, she stands for theing I care about, shes local, she’s real and she will ride a giant prawn to get her message accross, but I cant see her ever supporting such poor policy.
“Don’t vote for the Greens they can’t form government, vote for us because we can form government and we will give you the same crappy policies as the LNP anyway.” Seriously?!
It’s sad that Labor are so lost. They keep wanting to follow after the Liberals instead of standing up to them and fighting for what’s best for the people of Australia. Justine Elliot is talking like Scott Morrison now and instead of discussing the issue she’s delivering a prepared rave.
Let us read that again: “The Echo asked local Labor MP Justine Elliot how such polices align with Labor values, given this supports the Nationals and Liberals’ ideology of only helping the wealthy.”
There is no answer to that. When you vote Labor, you are voting for the Liberal Party and the wealthy. Anthony Albanese is stealing Liberal Party policy. The Labor Party leader, Anthony Albanese needs changing. Justine Elliot would make a better prime minister.
These taxes have already been passed with support of Hanson and “Independents, they are law. Labor are in opposition.
The corporate media in this country has been so corrupted that an opposition has no chance of explaining policies without them being misrepresented, PERIOD! Last election Labor had 20 pages of costed policies, the media refused to present them preferring the contrived Palmer/LNP “Stop Labor tax” lie machine.
The Greens have voted numerous times with the Liberals and the result has been the election of the Abbott Govt and this continuing Morrison nightmare of policy failure and catastrophe, resulting in fatalities.
Greens splitting the vote at the last 3 NSW elections have served up the Nationals in the Tweed.
Labor is the only thing on this planet that can rid us of this Morrison corruption and announcement of announcements media spin machine.
The question is, HOW MANY AUSTRALIANS WILL DIE , before Morrison is removed and Labor is elected to fix this catastrophic mess, the Greens cannot do it, they have just one member in Parliament you need 76 and thats just the Parliament!
Again, another person that doesn’t understand our voting system. It is not possible to split the vote under our federal compulsory preferential system, Labor are elected thanks to Green voters second preferences. A vote is never wasted unless you vote incorrectly.
If Labor doesn’t ‘guts it out’ as need be then we are all lost.
Sad to see Keith Duncan trotting out the old vote against the Rudd emissions plan, this was a completely toothless policy condemned at the time but most environmental authorities and superseded by the Greens /Gillard agreement which was scuttled by Abbott. This has been used by Labor ever since to bash the Greens and few ever check the details. Handy.
The only way we will get any meaningful change in our deplorable polity is to elect the Greens into balance of power so we can force the ALP some social and environmental morality. Even so a vote for Greens mostly ends up with the ALP in the rigged preferential system.
Your comments are telling, Tom about the 100% of nothing being better than any percentage of something Greens’ attitude.
Yes the emissions trading scheme was less than serious environmentalists wanted but it was a start. And look at the context of that start: a fundamentally conservative, hip-pocket oriented population easily manipulated by a mega powerful mining and business lobby and conservative press. The Australian population needed to be eased into long-term incremental change. There’s certainly no time for incremental change now but consider how we’re looking at close to two lost decades.
Sure the Greens/Gillard scheme saw the only period of genuine progress on emissions reduction but that didn’t end well did it? Even the hard-line terminology insisted on by the Greens gave Tony Abbott all the necessary ammunition to bring down arguably the most effective reformist government seen in Aus, replacing it with arguably the worst. What’s more it cemented climate policy as an area that turned reform into political suicide, saw a revolving door of PM’s and reform going backwards.
A great insight into this period is “The Fights of My Life”, by Greg Combet, the minister charged with the delivery of the climate initiative.
John Howard went into one election with fingers crossed saying he’d never ever introduce a GST. One election later and we had one. The population can be cajoled out of fear and reaction but it takes some subtlety of approach and political nouse. But a government needs to introduce the changes it wants from a position of strength and most importantly from government, not from opposition. No amount of purist moral high ground negates this unfortunate reality.
It’s unfortunate that the Greens view Labor as greater enemies that the Tories as they vie for the same voters. Doing away with preferential voting would simply mean that purist minority parties had an even better opportunity to split the progressive vote and see the LNP elected to every seat in the country.
The confected outrage about Labor standing for nothing is just more Greens’ political opportunism to bash their perceived electoral enemy number 1.
SO SAD that in many ways Labor has been forced to look like a ‘lite’ LNP. Not near as bad, but pretty unrecognisable from Labor in the OL days Growllll .Bill did try some fabulous / fair & commendable social policies & look where it got him. I blame the general public totally for their ignorance /greed & couldn’t give a rats about our ailing ecology. I’m voting for Mandy , she is certainly from my tribe (sadly ‘we’ are in the minority lets face it) and I live for the day I see her ride a giant prawn into parliament. Go girl……
The Greens are a ‘party of protest’. Justine has delivered for the Richmond electorate consistently for 15 years ensuring tangible benefits for the community. I’m with Keith on this one, and I’m with Justine at the next federal election.
I read the typically delusional replies from the Greens Council candidate and all of the supporting hangers-on, both “dark and lite”, “new and old” with a certain apathy and a great sense of relief that this ill-disciplined mob are never going to form a Govt. in their own right. The only time the Greens come to their senses is when they, and Labor form a loose agreement on the few sensible issues that we can agree on, and Labor acts as a moderating force. Both Labor’s Justine Elliott and Nationals Ben Franklin have done more for Byron Bay in five years than a Green dominated Council has in forty years. Judging from some of those seriously misinformed replies, I even wonder do the Greens actually want to remove this present misfiring Coalition Govt. They seem more intent on tearing each other apart in the Council election debacle and now- instead of attacking the Coalition-that is actually in Govt.- and is responsible for all this disfunction- they viciously turn on the Labor Party. Are they more content just forever winging and stupidly protesting about nearly everything a majority of Aussie voters will not vote for. Is it any wonder the Greens attract so little support, most voters think they are little more than a comedy act, especially in Byron where they have preselected a comedian to represent them.
Oh dear how short are some people’s memories?, unless of course you vote for the Greens, then it doesn’t matter what they put up as election policies because they never get elected to Govt., thus the policies that the majority of Australians will never vote for, will never get enacted. Cast your mind back to the last Federal election when the Labor Party took all of those policies you listed to the voters, and unless I missed something, Labor lost; the voters re-elected the Morrison Govt. and we were all subjected to another three years of the absolute shit we’ve been experiencing. How many times do you want to help this appalling Govt. get re-elected? Don’t you think it might be wise to go to the next election and not give the Coalition more of the same ammunition we gave them last time so they can’t effectively mount the same taxpayer funded scare campaign that they had so much success with again?, (read Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity). It is becoming more obvious that with the rise of social media, it’s extremely difficult if not impossible to sell very complex and major unpopular tax changes in the heightened atmosphere of an election campaign, from opposition. The only way is to first get into Govt. then go through a parliamentary process of taxation reform with the resources of Govt. acting for the reforms not against them, then take the proposals to the next election, something like John Howard did with an unpopular GST. How about we break new ground and focus on removing this motormouthed Morrison and his mongrel Govt. instead of wasting time and energy slagging off at the only alternative Govt. on offer. This Govt. now knows it’s in real trouble, they will use every underhanded trick and rort they can, to stay in power; therefore we must use every means at our disposal to remove them. Labor has, at the very least to be an huge improvement on the garbage that is there at present.
Notice how carefully she avoided giving an answer ? All she did was to have her media adviser write meaningless waffle for the unwashed to read in awe and disbelief !
The ALP is finished as a Party and will be a political footnote within the next 20 years , at all levels of Government .
Just look at the “Team” that they are attempting to foist upon Byron voters in the next Council Election .
Sad really .