Jobs and growth are the heart of political debate

Scott Morrison’s pledge to create 1.25 million jobs over the next five years has put the Coalition’s strong suit, the economy, front and centre of political debate, where it needs to be for the sake of living standards and the national interest. The jobs target is eminently credible. The Coalition comfortably achieved Tony Abbott’s 2013 pledge to create a million jobs over five years. Welfare dependence is at its lowest level in 30 years, and a record 80 per cent of Australians aged 25 to 54 are employed. Labor’s plans to let militant unions run rampant would undo much of the good work.

Although the Coalition trails Labor 53-47 on the two-party preferred vote, the gap in Newspoll has closed by four points over the summer, suggesting the electorate may be starting to listen to the Coalition again and engage with the issues facing the nation. Neither side of politics should try to buy its way into office with high-spending promises. The projected return to surplus — for the first time since the Howard government — while welcome, could prove a “flash in the pan’’, Deloitte Access Economics warns today. Revenue windfalls from soaring company tax and mining receipts could prove ephemeral, the firm says, with Australia at risk of repeating one of its oldest budgetary mistakes: that is, “between now and the federal election, both sides of politics will be busily making permanent promises off th e back of temporary good news”.

As voters scrutinise how the main parties’ policies will affect them, it will be cold comfort that Labor has promised $200 billion in extra taxes to fund its reckless spending sprees and its plans to enlarge the government’s footprint in Australians’ everyday lives.

On Friday, leading businessman and former Reserve Bank of Australia board member Roger Corbett attacked Labor’s plan to plunder the savings of retired Australians by ripping up the franking credits system for dividends. Doing so would hurt tens of thousands of older people, who would find it difficult to switch strategies after budgeting for retirement under the current rules. Instead of focusing on retirements in Coalition ranks, the government should be concentrating on protecting the interests of retirees from Labor.

In recent weeks Labor’s Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen has faced a series of attacks on the ALP’s tax-hike plans. The party still has big questions to answer, including its planned start-up date for the crackdown on negative gearing and its hike in capital gains tax. There is no reason something so fundamental should be kept secret.

Far from slugging “the big end of town’’, as Bill Shorten claims, Labor’s capital gains plans would hit battlers. Australian Taxation Office data reveals that more than 60 per cent of those who made capital gains in 2016 earned $80,000 or less. These taxpayers — including 194,000 with incomes in the middle income tax bracket of $37,000 to $80,000 — would pay a much higher rate of capital gains tax under Labor. The risks of switching to a high-tax,
big-spending blueprint are acute, at both the national and household levels.