Labor continues to sit on the fence about whether to pass the Coalition’s extreme flat-tax plan into law. For instance, The Guardian runs a headline stating ‘Labor says it will oppose Coalition’s ‘economically irresponsible’ tax cuts for wealthy’, and quotes Anthony Albanese saying “What we are doing is standing firm with regard to our position on stage three.” But when you scroll down a little way: “The Opposition has not said whether it will block the passage of the legislation if its votes are needed for it to come into effect.” So much for ‘standing firm’! Albo needs to put self-promoting dimwits Peter Khalil [$] and Joel Fitzgibbon back in their boxes — they want the party to betray its constituency by passing regressive tax scales for the foreseeable future. Even if Labor wins the next election, it would require an unlikely landslide in the Senate to have any hope of rolling back these changes. If Labor capitulates, they will be locked in for the long term.
25 June 2019