Budget 2021: Labor decries reform failure

Labor has declared the budget a ‘shameless political fix’ rather than the genuine economic reform.

Opposition Treasurer Jim Chalmers during press conference for the 2021 Budget. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Labor has declared the budget a “shameless political fix” rather than the genuine economic reform needed to make Australia’s economy stronger and more sustainable amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Opposition Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers and colleague senator Katy Gallagher said despite “the hype and the headlines” Australians on modest incomes would receive only a temporary tax break before the election while the highest-income earners would enjoy a permanent tax cut.

Greens leader Adam Bandt echoed Labor’s concerns as he called out the government for “locking in” stage 3 tax cuts for billionaires and the nation’s wealthiest.

“While on the surface the budget may appear to do away with the Liberals’ years of austerity politics, it continues the myth that largesse to the super-wealthy will trickle down to everyday people,” he said.

Coalition senator Gerard Rennick told The Australian he was reserving the right to vote against his own government’s budget in order to send a message to Scott Morrison to more aggressively pursue reform.

Senator Rennick wants the government to make low-income tax cuts permanent, take responsibility for monetary policy off the Reserve Bank, and pay parents directly for childcare, saying the current policy discriminates against stay-at-home parents who hire nannies.

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie hailed the budget as a “welcome change in direction” by a conservative government, declaring that the spending plan began the process of addressing serious problems across the aged care and disability sectors, as well as the treatment of women.

Mr Wilkie said it was regrettable it had taken a global pandemic and a looming election to force the government’s hand in delivering such a budget. He also called out its failure to address the housing crisis and climate change.

Australian Council of Trade Union president Michele O’Neil said the budget would not improve key issues such as insecure work and low wage growth. She also called out its failure to deliver on issues affecting women.

“The Prime Minister loudly claimed to be addressing issues of concern to women with the appointment of a team of new ministers,” she said. “But this budget provides only small amounts of money for limited programs, which fall short of the far-reaching change needed to close the gender pay gap or keep women safe in workplaces or their homes.”

Conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs blasted the budget as one “Labor would have been proud to have delivered” and the government had committed the nation to permanently higher spending, higher taxes and higher debt without offering any economic reform.

IPA director of research Daniel Wild said total gross government debt was now the equivalent to $37,500 per person – a staggering 1300 per cent increase since the eve of the global financial crisis. “It will not just be our children paying back this debt, but our grandchildren and future generations.”

Australian Education Union president Correna Haythorpe welcomed new preschool funding for four-year-olds, but said previous budget failures meant Australia had fallen behind the rest of the world, where two years of preschool has already become the gold standard.