Greens eye a deal as cost of Senate support

The minor party hasn’t ruled out demanding more cost-of-living relief in exchange for its support on stage three.

Acting Greens leader Mehreen Faruqi says her party will “fight to make sure Labor does more to support everyday people”. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Anthony Albanese could face calls to deliver more cost-of-living relief in exchange for the Greens’ crucial support for Labor’s overhauled stage three tax cuts, setting up a possible showdown in the Senate.

With the Coalition vowing to fight the Albanese government’s substantial revamp of stage three – which retains the 37 per cent tax bracket for workers earning more than $135,000 and applies a 45 per cent top tax bracket to incomes above $190,000 – Labor must gain the support of the Greens and two Senate crossbenchers to push its changes through parliament.

ACT independent senator David Pocock was the only crossbencher to flag support for the reforms on Wednesday, ahead of the Prime Minister formally announcing his revised package at the Nat­ional Press Club in Canberra on Thursday.

Greens defector and now independent senator Lidia Thorpe also said Labor’s package was “an improvement on their previous plan” but wouldn’t reveal her position until she looked at the changes carefully. “We need to look at the broader picture of what people need to survive and thrive in the long term,” she said.

Greens sources said being more supportive of Labor’s stage three than the Coalition’s already legislated package, which would have imposed a 30 per cent tax rate on the earnings of all Australians on incomes between $45,000 and $200,000, did not mean the party would support the plans.

They were considering referring any new stage three legislation to a Senate committee, which could delay a vote on the reforms by months.

“There’s the option of pushing for more (on cost of living). It’s not a case of ‘Oh well, this is better than nothing and we must accept it point blank’,” a Greens source said.

Acting Greens leader Mehreen Faruqi, who wants legislated stage three tax cuts scrapped, declined to endorse Labor’s rejigged package until more details were known, accusing the government of attempting to dress up Morrison-era policy that benefited “politicians and millionaires”.

“Labor would have to make pretty serious changes (to stage three) for them to help working people,” Senator Faruqi said.

“The Greens will fight to make sure Labor does more to support everyday people. If Labor would stop dressing up a stinker of a policy and actually scrap tax cuts for the rich, we could invest in supporting people who are really struggling by putting dental into Medicare, by making childcare and education free, and by freezing rents for two years while wages catch up.”

Senator Pocock said the government’s proposed changes were consistent with reforms he had pushed for. “The government’s refinements to the stage three tax cuts align closely with the changes Senator Pocock has been advocating for and will make the tax system both fairer and better aligned with our current economic environment,” his spokeswoman said.

Teal MP Zali Steggall, whose electorate of Warringah is home to thousands of Australians who will be worse off under Mr Albanese’s stage three package, hit out at the “arbitrary and politically opportunistic” changes. She said she needed to analyse the new proposal but it was “bad policy”.

Fellow teal Allegra Spender, whose eastern Sydney seat of Wentworth is the richest in the country, blasted the government amid concern her constituents had already factored stage three into their financial planning.

She called on Labor not to break its election promise.

Teal MP Kate Chaney in Curtin was disappointed Labor didn’t “have the courage to revisit tax cuts before the last election”, given national debt had doubled in the previous two years, and fellow teal MP Monique Ryan backed the move to reshape the tax cuts as “the right thing to do”, despite her Kooyong electorate including many very wealthy Australians.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson was “disgusted” Labor had “broken another election promise”.