Did Financial Services Minister Jane Hume suggest to Patricia Karvelas on ABC Radio National this morning, erroneously, that the $1080 tax breaks were a Covid measure?
These are the tax breaks they are just about to take away, leaving most Australian workers paying more tax. If so, she is either lying or spinning somebody else’s lie. Here’s Josh Frydenberg bragging about them in 2019, pre-Covid (story and radio clip linked)
“Two significant measures will deliver $158bn of tax relief for hard-working Australians. These are the largest income tax cuts since the Howard government. The government is more than doubling (LITO and LAMITO) from last year. For a single income family, that’s $1080 a year.”
That was a bit of a Joshie lie anyway, double counting from the Budget a year before, but nevertheless, the government has let the tax offset quietly lapse. The ABC and other media are still has yet to get their collective heads around this but taxes for most “hard-working Australians” are just about to go up, not down.
Shorten to Frydenberg: I’ll see you, raise you and raise the tax-free threshold
Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.