High-profile academics go public to push Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to increase taxes

A HIGH-PROFILE campaign demanding higher taxes is backed almost exclusively by people who have benefited from taxpayer-funded jobs and has been labelled “a stupid idea” that would “make earning a living even harder” by Treasurer Scott Morrison.

A HIGH-PROFILE campaign demanding higher taxes is being publicly backed almost exclusively by Australians who have benefited from taxpayer-funded jobs.

An open letter urging Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to reject tax cuts for families is part of the left-wing Australia Institute’s Australia Doesn’t Need Lower Taxes campaign and includes at least 37 signatories who have taxpayers to thank for their employment. The letter’s 48 signatories say “we need more tax — not less”.

Australia Institute executive director Ben Oquist.

Dr Gigi Foster.

Treasurer Scott Morrison slammed the call as “a stupid idea”, and told The Daily Telegraph it would only make “earning a living and running a business harder”.

“If you pay tax, Labor and their cheer squad at the Australia Institute and the other elite hangers-on are not on your side,” he said.

“They’ve always got lots of ideas about how to spend other people’s money but no idea about how to back those who pay the taxes in the first place.”

Port of Newcastle chairman Roy Green.

The Australia Institute cites three-year-old OECD figures that show Australia’s tax take averaged 28.2 per cent of GDP, making it a lower-taxing country than Britain and Canada but not the United States.

One of the signatories, former Sydney academic turned Port of Newcastle chairman Roy Green, rejected claims that the company he now heads could be one targeted by the Australia Institute campaign.

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February accounts shows the Port of Newcastle took a tax rebate of $5.41 million in the last two years despite recording a profit of more than $27.5 million in 2016 and $2.75 million in 2015.

But Professor Green, who took over last year, said the port “does pay tax and the amount paid is in accordance with its obligations”. He said he had signed the campaign letter “in a personal capacity”.

Former Cabinet secretary Dr Michael Keating.

Former WA premier, Professor Carmen Lawrence.

Professor Green, who is campaigning against another levy on containers at Newcastle’s port, has worked for the Commonwealth, NSW and Queensland governments and at the University of Technology Sydney.

Others backing the Australia Institute’s demands are former Cabinet secretary Michael­ Keating, former departmental secretary Paul Barratt, former WA Premier Carmen Lawrence and a string of academics.

Mr Keating told The Telegraph tax revenues needed to rise by “about three percentage points over the next three decades” relative to GDP to avoid a deficit crisis.

Australia Institute executive director Ben Oquist, a former chief-of-staff to Greens leaders Bob Brown and Christine Milne, said former public servants had “every right to participate in the public debate”.

Another signatory, UNSW academic Gigi Foster, said that if the nation wanted advice­ about what was best for it “you are basically stuck asking for it from people whose work is paid for by the nation”.