Mining tax Bill branded class war
Labor has accused the Abbott Government of using the abolition of the mining tax for a class war against low-income earners and small business.
As the Government claimed Labor did not care about the economy by refusing to support an end to the MRRT, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said no ordinary Australian expected the coalition to make life more expensive.
The Government plans a combined Bill that abolishes the mining tax and a string of benefits.
These include axing the Schoolkids Bonus of about $1200 a year to low and middle-income families, a $500-a-year contribution to the superannuation of low-income earners and supplementary payments to welfare recipients.
On the chopping block for businesses is an increase to the instant asset write-off measure, the accelerated depreciation for cars used for business and the loss carry-back measures.
On its MyWealth internet page yesterday, the Commonwealth Bank said the measures would hurt mostly low-income families.
Mr Shorten, in his first comments on the mining tax as leader, said the Government's claim it was getting rid of the tax because it was not raising enough money made little sense.
"We don't believe that is the real motivation of the coalition," he said.
"We think they aren't governing for all."
Despite promising to govern for all Australians, the Government was nearly doubling debt and it intended to put new taxes on the superannuation of millions of people or on hundreds of thousands of small businesses.
The coalition promised from 2010 to repeal the mining tax and associated spending measures.
But Mr Shorten said voters had not signed up to losing the Schoolkids Bonus or their superannuation and many small businesses would be worse off under the Government's plan.
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said the Schoolkids Bonus had been a "substitution" policy tied to the mining tax, so it had to go.
