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After a day spent deriding the size and start date of Labor’s new tax cut, the Coalition is preparing to unveil its own pitch for election primacy and it starts at the petrol pump.
This is an election that multiple leading pollsters predict will be fought in the outer suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne in particular, where swinging voters will be critical.
Those are also parts of the nation with lots of commuters, and the Coalition will reveal in tonight’s budget reply that if elected it would reduce fuel excise by 25c.
Labor’s income tax cut is due to kick in next year, and on average deliver about five dollars extra a week in the first twelve months, that increases in a second year to deliver an average of $10 a week back to workers. Over the three years it’s costing $17 billion.
The Coalition’s proposal, according to estimates it has put forward, would cut fuel costs by about $14 a week. You can double that for a two-car household. It delivers this saving to all drivers, not just those collecting a wage and would start immediately.
The Opposition Leader and Treasurer spent the budget hangover day trying to pick apart the government’s centrepiece policy as a “cruel hoax”, refusing to back the bills as Labor put them straight to the parliament and the Treasurer promoted his “modest” tax cuts.
Harking back to previous Liberal Governments that have also cut fuel excise, this new policy would be temporary and reduce excise revenue by $6 billion over 12 months.
Tonight’s budget reply from Mr Dutton is also expected to reveal the size of the cut to the migration program, a significant reduction has been foreshadowed by the opposition, though shadow treasurer Angus Taylor has recently declined to repeat a previous claim he made last year that the Coalition would cut Net Overseas Migration by 25 per cent.
A gas reservation policy may also be on the cards as well as a housing pitch.
While drivers across the country watch the litres and dollars adding up as they fill up with fuel over the next six weeks, the Coalition will be heavily promoting this measure, and hoping it can trigger another political gear shift ahead of the election.
