ALP wipes policy details off website

Labor deletes information explaining his ­signature reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax from its website.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. Picture: Kym Smith

Bill Shorten was blindsided ­yesterday when Labor’s official campaign website deleted reams of information explaining his ­signature reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax, and reposted simplified “fact sheets” with key details stripped out.

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Labor previously had almost 100 paragraphs posted on its housing policy, including charts and diagrams explaining the negative gearing and capital gains wind back, but this was reduced to just 10 paragraphs yesterday.

The Opposition Leader was also caught out yesterday when he claimed there would be no new taxes on superannuation, despite Labor planning a $34 billion raid on nest egg ­savings.

Ahead of Treasury’s pre-­election economic and fiscal outlook, to be released today, Mr Shorten came under further ­pressure last night when Labor appeared to scrap its superannuation tax changes policy sheet from its online manifesto.

At a tense news conference earlier, Mr Shorten refused to answer repeated questions over how much Labor’s climate change policy would cost the economy.

Mr Shorten’s office described the overhaul of Labor's policy pages as being part of a total website update. But it handed the ­Coalition a new line of attack in its campaign against Labor’s “$387 billion tax grab” ahead of the May 18 election.

With Labor yet to release updated costings on its key tax crackdowns, the Coalition and housing industry groups last night seized on the changes.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said: “Not only has (Labor Treasury spokesman) Chris Bowen been exposed for using inaccurate figures to justify his housing tax, he has now been caught out trying to cover his tracks.”

The move to delete key policy details came only a week after the assumptions underpinning the negative gearing policy were revealed to be based on unreliable figures. The use of the figures could result in an overstatement of budget savings by billions of dollars. Scott Morrison yesterday attacked Mr Shorten for “lying” over his plans to impose $34bn in extra taxes on superannuation over the next decade, after his rival claimed there were “no plans to introduce any new taxes on superannuation”.

The opposition has pledged to cap post-tax contributions into super and dump a series of government measures allowing savers to put more money into the $2.7 trillion super system.

The proposed changes to super include abolishing catch-up contributions for 230,000 workers, removing deductible contributions for 800,000 workers and ­reducing the non-concessional contribution cap from $100,000 to $75,000.

Mr Shorten, who will continue his health-focused campaign in Perth today, said he was unaware of the website update and had asked “how come this page is down?”

“They said they’re updating it; I can’t add any more at this point,” Mr Shorten said.

A Labor spokeswoman said the superannuation fact sheet was “so old it referenced Malcolm ­Turnbull 36 times” and was still online despite the fact it could not be found on the Labor website.

The PEFO, released within 10 days of the issue of the writs for a general election, is used as the basis of the economic parameters for the major parties’ policy ­costings. The update takes into ­account all government decisions made before the writs were issued and the circumstances likely to have an effect on the economic outlook.

The Prime Minister, who has sharpened his pitch to older ­Australians, yesterday pledged that there would no be any new super taxes under a Coalition ­government.

The Coalition suffered a voter backlash over its decision to limit tax-free pensions to $1.6 million for individuals and $3.2m for couples ahead of the 2016 election.

Self-Managed Super Fund Association chief executive John Maroney said anything that resulted in less flexibility or took away incentives to put money into super would result in more retirees relying on welfare.

“We support incentives to help people pay for their own retirement and that is at risk if Labor moves ahead with these changes,” Mr Maroney said.

Mr Frydenberg last night accused Mr Shorten of launching a $100bn tax raid on older Australians. “Bill Shorten is treating senior Australians with contempt,” Mr Frydenberg said.

“These senior Australians have done nothing wrong other than save for their retirement in the hope they won’t be a burden on the public purse and Bill Shorten’s thanks to them is to frame them as tax cheats and slug them with higher taxes.”

Opposition finance spokesman Jim Chalmers said Mr Shorten was promising no changes to superannuation on top of what Labor had already announced.

The opposition says reducing the concessions will overwhelmingly affect a small number of wealthier savers.

The sharpening of the tax debate ahead of the election came as Labor prepared to ramp up a new digital and ground campaign, after independent think tank, the Grattan Institute, calculated the government might need to cut $40bn a year to achieve its target to reduce spending from 24.9 per cent of GDP to 23.6 per cent by the end of next decade.

Additional reporting: Ben Packham, Greg Brown