Mallee families, farmers and businesses will benefit from the Coalition’s plan to cut $31 billion in Labor Government waste, repair the Federal Budget and lower income taxes, Federal Member for Mallee Dr Anne Webster said today.
The Coalition’s $31 billion in Budget savings over four years from the next election will fund the Coalition’s $20 billion Tax Back Guarantee which puts more money back in the pockets of those that earn it.
“Labor’s answer to Australians struggling with the cost of living has been more spending, more bureaucracy and higher taxes that all drive up inflation, eating away the value of hard-earned income,” Dr Webster said.
“The Coalition’s answer is to cut waste, fix the Budget and let Australians keep more of the money they earn,” Dr Webster said.
“Mallee families, farmers and small businesses have been hit from every direction by higher power bills, higher interest rates and the consequences of Labor’s expensive policy experiments railroading farms, dividing local communities and turning our landscapes into industrial wastelands.”
The largest Coalition saving is $9.4 billion from winding back Labor’s climate bureaucracy, including abolishing the Net Zero Economy Agency, restoring the Australian Renewable Energy Agency to its original purpose, and scrapping Labor’s electric vehicle tax concessions, home battery program and Scope 3 emissions reporting requirements.
A further $7.3 billion would be saved by ending corporate welfare, including green hydrogen and aluminium production incentives, critical minerals tax credits and funding associated with the National Reconstruction Fund.
Dr Webster said the savings vindicated years of warnings from communities across Mallee about the enormous public cost and regional consequences of Labor’s reckless rush to renewables.
“Mallee has been ground zero for Labor’s destructive energy experiment,” Dr Webster said.
“For years I have stood with farmers and communities fighting Labor’s Rewiring the Nation agenda, VNI-West, industrial-scale wind and solar proposals and the trashing of prime agricultural land.”
Dr Webster said the Coalition would instead pursue cheaper, better and fairer energy while respecting food production, property rights and regional communities. She has also drafted the Prime Agricultural Land Protection Bill to prevent Commonwealth funding supporting projects that diminish the productivity of Australia’s best farming land. Leader of The Nationals Matt Canavan tabled that Bill in the Senate as his first act as Leader.
“Our farmers produce the food and fibre Australians depend on. Prime agricultural land is an irreplaceable national asset, not vacant space on Labor’s fantasy energy map,” Dr Webster said.
The Coalition’s savings package also includes $7.9 billion in Budget improvements from cracking down on the illicit tobacco market and $4.7 billion by winding back Labor’s ineffective housing bureaucracy.
The $31 billion savings will support the Coalition’s Tax Back Guarantee, indexing income-tax brackets with inflation.
Under the Coalition plan, a worker on $70,000 per annum would receive increasing automatic, annual tax relief as income tax bracket thresholds are indexed, gaining $244 tax back in the first year, rising to $1,012 in the fourth.
