Treasurer in savage strike at ‘politics of envy’ ahead of Bill Shorten’s inequality speech

DO you see successful Australians buying nice houses and fast cars and feel ripped off? You’re just being manipulated, our Treasurer says.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is playing the politics of envy, Treasurer Scott Morrison says.

LABOR wants to put the handbrake on successful Aussies as it engages in the politics of envy, Treasurer Scott Morrison has said in pre-emptive strike at the Opposition’s tax policies.

The Treasurer accused Opposition Leader Bill Shorten of producing an economic program based on “the narrow lens of envy”.

Mr Shorten at the weekend is expected to outline tax policies to be promoted under the broad banner of fighting inequality.

“That is a brand of politics that divides and ultimately disappoints the very people it promises to support. Such an approach seeks to chase votes rather than earn them,” Mr Morrison said in a speech to the Australian Industry Group in Adelaide this morning.

“Bill Shorten only thinks you are doing better if someone else is doing worse. It’s a con. This politics, this populist agenda, is always based on someone losing, so long as it’s not Bill Shorten.

“It’s a small vision for a big and successful nation like Australia and a dark vision for our economy, which the Turnbull Government rejects.

“Populist politicians like Bill Shorten will always stand at the microphone and make bold assumptions about the ever-increasing gap between haves and have nots.”

Mr Morrison says Labor’s jealousy pitch is a “con”. Source: Supplied.

The Opposition wants to appeal to voters who have had limited or no wage growth for three years, who are underemployed, and who are struggling with household expenses.

The Government is arguing the best way to help struggling households is to grow the economy to benefit all, not to increase taxes on the well-to-do to pay for measures.

It has downplayed the warning of economic unfairness, but Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe on Wednesday confirmed inequality which “grew quite a lot in the 1980s and the 1990s, and it has risen a little bit just recently”.

Mr Lowe said the problem would be “more pronounced in the past few years because of the of the rise in assets prices — people that own those assets have seen their wealth go up.”

“If you have rising inequality it may be harder to get policies of the middle ground, so that is a political aspect,” he said.

Treasurer Morrison said “this cheap rhetoric about an unfair Australia diminishes the achievements of generations of Australians”.

And he attacked what he called “the flat earth argument that you’re doing worse because someone else is doing better”, and pointed to support under the welfare system.

Mr Morrison said the Australian Bureau of Statistics had found the poorest 20 per cent of households, on average, receive cash transfers and social services benefits worth more than eight times what they pay in taxes.

Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison. Picture: AAP

And in addition, a 2010 study showed that the poorest 20 per cent of households received 12 times as much in cash benefits as the richest 20 per cent — the highest ratio in the OECD and 50 per cent more than the next most targeted country, New Zealand.

And he forecast: “There are better days ahead.

“There is a clear momentum building within our economy, as businesses become more confident and begin to release the handbrake on their investment.

“The sustained growth in new jobs is a perfect example of this underlying strength.

“Last month, 62,000 Australians went out to find a full-time job and got one, taking the number of jobs created in the 2016-17 financial year to 240,000.

“With increased investment and sustained profitability will come increased wages.

“These are encouraging signs, but we cannot take it for granted.

“The Turnbull Government will continue to make the right choices to secure the better days ahead, as we did again in this year’s Budget to grow our economy and ensure that all Australians get a fair go.”