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Bill Shorten delivers Budget reply speech
UPDATES: Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has used his Budget reply speech to declare his government would deliver $71 billion worth of improvements.
OPPOSITION Leader Bill Shorten has used his Budget reply speech to declare his government would deliver $71 billion worth of improvements to the Budget bottom line – leaving no doubt economic management will be one of the biggest issues of the election.
Mr Shorten said his team was committed to taking care of Australia’s “battlers”, claiming the Budget showed the Turnbull Government would only look after “Malcolm’s millionaires”. “Was this really the point of the Turnbull experiment?” he said. “Tax cuts for high income earners and nothing for families.” Mr Shorten said the Opposition would support the personal tax bracket changes announced as part of the Coalition’s Budget on Tuesday night – which would broaden the 32.5 per cent tax bracket income threshold from $80,000 to $87,000. And would also support cutting the company tax rate to 25 per cent, which was already the party’s policy. But he said the government’s plan to eventually broaden the tax cut to businesses with turnover of less than $1 billion was a taxpayer subsidy they don’t need and Australia could not afford. Mr Shorten said Labor also would not support the government’s planned changes to superannuation, describing them as “chaotic” and made with “zero consultation”. He also reiterated a number of other Labor policies which he said in total would improve Budget forecasts by $71 billion over the next decade. “This is what a responsible Budget looks like,” he said. Mr Shorten earmarked Medicare as a major election battleground. “Make no mistake, the second of July will be a referendum on the future of Medicare,” he said. He described the Coalition’s Budget, released by Treasurer Scott Morrison on Tuesday, as lacking vision. “(In) contrast (to Labor’s plan), this Budget punishes people who can’t afford it and rewards those who don’t need it,” he said. He said a working mother earning $65,000 a year and with two high school aged children would be more than $4,700 a year worse off because of the Turnbull Government’s budget, while someone earning $1 million a year would be nearly $17,000 better off. “This Budget was meant to be Malcolm Turnbull’s justification for rolling Tony Abbott,” he said. Read our earlier live coverage of events below:
Originally published as Bill Shorten delivers Budget reply speech