Morrison’s budget ‘to leave us better off’

The latest Newspoll has found more people believed the budget would leave them financially better off rather than worse off.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Treasurer Scott Morrison.

Scott Morrison’s third budget has been strongly backed by voters, according to the latest Newspoll, which found more people ­believed it would leave them ­financially better off rather than worse off.

This is the first time since Peter Costello’s final budget, delivered in 2007, that more people than not believed their own circumstances would be improved.

However, the Turnbull government has ground to make up with its own voter base, with ­retirees and pensioners declaring that they stand to be worse off, with little in the budget for them.

The post-budget Newspoll found 29 per cent of voters ­believed they would be better off financially compared with 27 per cent who claimed not to be.

The Treasurer’s $140 billion personal income tax plan won ­approval from a significant majority of voters, with almost twice as many voters backing the tax plan than those opposed. Almost one-third of Labor voters also backed the plan.

The poll found 51 per cent of voters backed the plan, which would begin with $530 tax refunds for low and middle-income earners before axing the second-highest tax bracket of 37 per cent by 2024 and setting a 32.5 per cent rate for workers earning between $41,000 and $200,000.

Those opposed made up 28 per cent while 21 per cent were yet to make up their mind. While half of all Labor voters were opposed, 31 per cent endorsed it, with 19 per cent uncommitted.

The budget was also convincingly endorsed as being good for the economy, with the Coalition’s mantle as being the better economic manager being reaffirmed by a slightly reduced margin.

However, Labor has convinced a growing number of voters that it is capable of delivering a better budget despite a majority still doubtful.

Mr Morrison yesterday continued to make the case for the tax cuts despite two key Senate crossbench groups claiming they, like Labor, would demand the bill be split to allow a vote only on the first phase of a $530 handout for low-income earners, which they would support.

“Someone who is earning full-time average wages today, they will face higher tax rates in the ­future unless we deal with bracket creep,’’ he said. “Even under what the Labor Party is proposing, if you are on an average wage now, five years from now you will be paying more tax under Bill Shorten.

“They don’t deal with bracket creep, they don’t deal with simplifying the system. See, we have ­provided a comprehensive plan to deal with problems in the tax system.

“Bill Shorten has engaged in a political Dutch auction. He can do that, but our plan is set out and it’s dealing with real problems and that’s why it is a holistic plan.

“Low and middle-income earners first, bracket creep, simplification — it is a clear plan.”

The government has claimed that after the tax cut plan was fully implemented, 94 per cent of Australians would pay no more than 32.5 per cent tax while the high-­income threshold would be raised from $180,000 to $200,000.

Labor Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen accused Mr Morrison of deliberately withholding crucial information on the government’s tax policies by “refusing to detail the year-on-year impacts of the government’s income tax cuts, despite most changes occurring outside the forward estimates”.

Voters’ support for the budget was a stark turnaround from the Abbott government’s first budget in 2014 — the most poorly received budget in at least 20 years — in which 69 per cent claimed they would be worse off.