Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. Last night I announced cuts to income tax for all Australians—for all Australians that pay income tax. We will do that in two stages. In the first stage, we will lift the threshold for paying 30c in the dollar from $25,000 to $30,000, and in the second stage we will lift the threshold for the 40c rate from $75,000 to $80,000 and the threshold for the 45c rate from $150,000 to $180,000. All Australians get an income tax cut as a consequence of that. For those that are on average wages—between $40,000 and $50,000—this will be a tax cut of $16 a week. That will be helpful for families, it will improve work incentives and it is consistent with our policy.

The shell press release that the Labor Party delivered to all its candidates has been sent to me, and I will table it in a moment. I am pleased to see that it starts off as follows:

Federal Labor Candidate for <Insert Electorate> Mr/Mrs <Insert Candidate Name> tonight welcomed tax cuts for working families and carers ...

That is good. That is in the shell press release that the Labor Party has put out. It continues:

“Make no mistake, all <Insert Electorate> families deserve to share in the profits from the mining boom—a boom ...

This reads like a text from the Leader of the Opposition on radio this morning—he probably was reading this out. What is the name of his electorate? Insert name here—K. Rudd, electorate Griffith. It continues:

“Their inclusion in tonight’s budget is welcome”, <Insert Candidate Name> said.

Mr/Mrs <Insert Candidate Name> said the 2007 Federal Budget was a cynical, pre-election budget.

How do you like that? You have got a cynical shell press release which accuses the government of cynicism. You have got to say it has chutzpah. As George Burns famously said, ‘Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.’ Cynicism is everything, and, if you can cynically accuse someone of cynicism, you have got it made. There is the shell press release. That is about all the work that the Labor Party did on the federal budget. I table it and will take further questions from that shell press release.

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