Opposition leader Bill Shorten delivers Labor’s Budget reply

Bill Shorten has put first home buyers, lower taxation and increased cash to schools and healthcare at the centre of his pitch to voters in Labor’s budget reply.

Bill Shorten says the government is cementing an “intergenerational bias” into the tax system that prevents people from getting on the property ladder.

“A government must be brave enough and decent enough to stop the bias against first home buyers and young Australians and we will be that government,” Mr Shorten said in his Budget reply speech tonight.

The Opposition Leader appealed to first-home buyers in his pitch to voters saying “lectures about cutting back on smashed avo” were patronising to young people.

He acknowledged “getting together a 20 per cent deposit plus stamp duty is so much, much harder than it was 20 or 25 years ago”, and said the tax system was “a loaded dice against our young people, Generation Y and the millennials”.

“It is even more difficult when your government uses your taxpayer money to subsidise the property investors bidding against you,” he said.

Mr Shorten committed to changing negative gearing rules if elected as part of Labor’s plan to “stop intergenerational unfairness in our tax system”.

He said a Labor government would also deliver more relief for lower paid workers and pour billions into cancer treatments.

But he warned the Coalition was setting in place a “ticking debt bomb” with its future tax plans.

It’s Labor’s last opportunity to win around the electorate before the election is called, likely in the next few days. Indeed, Mr Shorten said “if we win will put back every single dollar the Liberals pulled out of hospitals and schools”.

Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten during Question Time in the House of Representatives on Thursday. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas.

The opposition’s official Budget reply comes two days after Treasurer Josh Frydenberg projected Australia’s finances would be in surplus for the first time in more than a decade. Mr Frydenberg dangled the carrot of one-off handouts of up to $125 to counter power bills and talked offered chunky tax cuts particularly for middle income earners.

Here’s how Mr Shorten countered the Treasurer’s first Budget:

TAX CUTS FOR LOWER INCOME WORKERS

Labor doesn’t have an issue with the Coalition’s Budget tax cuts — they just don’t go far enough, Mr Shorten has said.

The opposition has claimed people earning less than $40,000 per year have been “forgotten” in the Budget.

Labor would match the Coalition’s tax cuts for people earning up to $126,000 a year and increase them for those on less than $40,000.

The party has characterised the government’s tax cuts as “$5 per week if you’re earning $35,000 per year and $11,000 per year if you’re on 200 grand”. That’s a “tax on working mums”, it has said.

The mum’s theory goes thus: 57 per cent of workers with salaries below $40,000 are women, many of who are parents who work part time. While someone earning $200,000 will eventually get a tax cut of $11,640 per year under the Coalition’s long term plans (from 2024-25 onwards), a person earning $40,000 or less will never get more than $580.

It’s not actually a tax on mums, but Mr Shorten has argued the government is favouring higher income workers.

“Here’s the simple truth — 6.4 million working people will pay the same amount of income tax under Labor as the Liberals and another 3.6 million will pay less tax under Labor,” he said.

“But we will not be signing up to the Liberals’ radical, right-wing, flat tax experiment, way off in the future, a scheme that would see a nurse on $50,000 paying the same tax rate as a surgeon on $200,000.

“We won’t back a plan that gives a retail worker on $35,000 less than $5 a week, while an investment banker pockets more than $11,000 a year. This is not a tax plan, it’s a ticking debt bomb.”

“Lectures about smashed avo are patronising,” said Mr Shorten. Picture: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/AFP.

FIRST HOME BUYERS

Relief for those trying to get on the property ladder was a big blank spot in the Budget on Tuesday. Labor is hoping to exploit that with Mr Shorten stating “we are going to stop the intergenerational unfairness in our tax system”.

“If you’re currently negatively gearing the rules won’t change. If you want to use it on new homes, you still can. But you cannot have property investors playing with loaded dice against our young people, Generation Y and the Millennials,” he said.

“Instead of patronising millions of young Australians with lectures about cutting back on smashed avo, why don’t we tell them the truth — getting together a 20 per cent deposit plus stamp duty is so much, much harder than it was 20 or 25 years ago?

“A government must be brave enough and decent enough to stop the bias against first home buyers and young Australians and we will be that government.”

But the details of how this would happen was scant.

This guy or this guy. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas.

NDIS BOOST

Mr Shorten said the Coalition was “short-changing” the National Disability Insurance Scheme by $1.6bn.

“There are thousands of Australians who embraced the promise of the NDIS but whose legitimate demands have simply not been met,” he said.

“The young man in Ballarat who has waited more than two years for a wheelchair, so long that he ended up in hospital with pressure sores.

“The family whose daughter has an intellectual disability, who have waited ten months for funding for the speech therapy she needed to learn and make friends at school.”

He said a Labor Government would lift the cap on NDIS staffing levels.

$2BN FOR CANCER CARE

Mr Shorten spruiked Labor’s planned “Medicare Cancer Plan” that will see billions invested to combat Australia’s biggest killer.

“A Shorten Labor Government will deliver the biggest cancer care package in Australian history, with a $2.3 billion investment to dramatically slash out-of-pocket costs for cancer patients,” he said.

“This is the most important reform to Medicare since it was introduced by Bob Hawke.”

Mr Shorten said nearly half of cancer patients pay more than $5000 in out-of-pocket costs over the course of their diagnosis and treatment. More than a quarter of cancer patients pay more than $10,000.

The money would go towards more free scans and consultations. He also said that every cancer drug recommended by “independent experts” will be listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

“Labor believes it should be your Medicare card, not your credit card, which guarantees access to quality health care in Australia,” he said.

Bill Shorten's Budget reply speech.

A BILLION FOR TAFE

Mr Shorten said Labor would “super charge the skills economy” by pouring $1bn into TAFE, part of which will go into creating 150,000 new apprentices.

The new apprentice places would be in areas of skill shortages. Labor will require at least one in 10 jobs on all major infrastructure and defence projects will be filled by an apprentice.

$200 million will be spent on rebuilding and upgrading TAFE campuses across the country and there will be support for 20,000 older workers to retrain through an Advanced Adult Apprenticeship.

‘CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL’

Going back to “intergenerational fairness”, Mr Shorten said the plan to make things fairer for young Aussies had to include real action on climate change.

He said the debate about climate change had “poisoned this parliament for 10 years, and it’s most certainly paralysed the current government”.

“Let’s deal in simple facts: Climate change is real. It is doing real damage to our economy and to our environment,” he said.

“We can measure the cost of inaction — bushfires, droughts, floods, extreme weather and damage to our farmland and our reef.

“For the sake of the Australia that we hand on to our children, a Labor government will reform, will not shirk the task of reform — it will take real action on climate change.”

TRADIE PAY GUARANTEE

Mr Shorten laid out Labor’s plan to “get wages moving again”, which included stopping companies using “sham contracts” and make sure tradies are paid on time.

“One, if we win the election, we will legislate to restore the arbitrary cuts to Sunday and public penalty rates in our first 100 days,” he said.

“Two, we will stop companies using sham contracts and dodgy labour hire arrangements to cut people’s pay and, three, our tradie pay guarantee means subbies working on Commonwealth projects get paid on time, every time.”

The Opposition leader also committed to create a “living wage” to help the 1.2 million lowest paid Australians.