4 July 2019

I am unspeakably angry about Labor’s gutless decision to legislate huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Australians. What I think about it isn’t fit for print. I’ll borrow instead from Waleed Aly: “Precisely what business does Labor have waving something like that through? … How is such a regressive change to income tax consistent with its world view? … I cannot escape the feeling Labor’s indecisiveness draws exactly the wrong conclusion from the election, and endangers it in potentially long-term ways. … [D]oes anyone in the Labor Party seriously believe that a single vote deserted them because Labor didn’t support a significant tax cut for people on $200,000 in five years’ time? … [By opposing the tax cuts] Labor could have preserved some sense of what it’s about as a party — the starting point for a narrative, if you will. Seems to me the greatest risk was to abandon that.“ Instead, Albo Labor is positioning itself as a weak party that believes in nothing.