Paul Keating reveals Bill Shorten lost the election on tax policy

Labor has been taking a good, hard look at itself since losing the federal election several months ago but former prime minister Paul Keating has outlined the one reason why Australia turned to Scott Morrison instead.

• Download our app now

Paul Keating has criticised the tax policies Labor took to the May federal election under Bill Shorten, saying the party had failed to understand the middle-class economy created during the Hawke-Keating years.

The former Labor prime minister said people simply wanted tax cuts and Labor missed the mark with its policies.

“So much of Labor party’s policies were devoted to the bottom end of the workforce and the community, paid for by cuts in tax expenditures,” he told ABC’s 7.30 program on Tuesday night.

“If the cuts in tax expenditures had of been employed in reducing tax rates, then it would have been a big tax reform and I believe a much more successful outcome.”

Paul Keating has told the ABC's 7:30 why Bill Shorten lost the election.

MORE NEWS

‘GLOVES ARE OFF’ IN US-CHINA TRADE WAR AS AUSSIE DOLLAR DIVES

ARCTIC WINDS TO BRING COLD SNAP FOR SYDNEY THIS WEEK

Mr Keating also lashed out at Liberal MPs agitating to scrap a rise in the superannuation guarantee, likening the backbench push to climate change denial.

Mr Keating has defended plans to lift the employer contribution from 9.5 per cent to 12 per cent, dismissing claims it could stymie already sluggish wage growth.

“It’s demonstrably false because nobody since 2014 has had any increase in super, there’s been no 2.5 per cent, yet wages have not increased at all,” he said.

A rump of Liberal MP have called for the government to dump the legislated rise, but the federal government said it has no plans to change course.

Bill Shorten simply didn’t understand voters, Paul Keating says. Picture: AAP

“It’s like climate deniers. We’ve got a bunch of people in the Liberal Party who have always hated superannuation. They are superannuation deniers,” Mr Keating said.

“Someone said yesterday, pithily, they are like anti-vaxxers, they are against vaccine.” The Keating government introduced the superannuation guarantee in 1992.

Mr Keating also rejected claims by the Grattan Institute thinktank and some coalition MPs that the increase would hit wages as “the great lie”.

“If this is refused, essentially what a Liberal Government would be doing is pilfering, stealing, robbing the workforce of 2.5 per cent of income,” he said.