FOR PRESS 25 MARCH 1979
ELECTORATE TALK
These days Australians understand that any call f or Government
to spend money is nothing less than a call to dig into peoples
pockets. One way or another, the taxpayer foots the bill for
every government spending decision. Money for new programmes,
incentives, or special help, is money collected from the pay
packets of Australian working men and women.
As Prime Minister I am often asked publicly, and privately in
my office, to shell out dollars for this project or that. I
make the point this is a request not so much of the Government,
but of a neighbour.
We learnt many bitter lessons from the Labor years. Above all,
we learnt that governments which throw money around with
abandon taxpayers money create a paralysis that. strikes
at the heart of a nation's economy. They create a paralysis
that takes years to cure.
The Coalition Government has been responsible in the management
of taxpayers dollars. We have been prudent with Government
spending. Compare our record against our predecessors. In
Labor's first year in office Government spending rose by
In 1974-75 it went through the roof, jumping by 46%, while in
1975-76 it still increased by nearly 24%. That's a 115%
increase in Government spending in three years.
By contrast, in our first year we controlled increases in
Government spending to 103 to 11% in 1977-78, and this
year the growth is estimated at under 8% the lowest increase
for ten years. This prudent, careful use of taxpayers funds
has allowed us to implement wide ranging and substantial
tax reforms. In our second Budget we reformed the personal
income tax scales. This was a major and far reaching tax
reform, which we were able to carry out only because we had
been prudent with the way we spent your money.
Under Labor the wage earner on $ 10,000 was taxed 45 in the
dollar, and the wage earner on $ 16,000 was taxed at 55 in
the dollar. Under our reform these rates have been cut to 33.5%.
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Just remember the days when people didn't want to work overtime.
It wasn't worth their while because of the tax slug. Today,
under our tax scales, there is a built-in incentive because our
33 standard rate applies to incomes up to $ 16,600. On top
of that our Family Allowance Scheme, one of Australia's greatest
social reforms of the century means direct payments to mothers.
Family Allowances have meant that 300,000 low income families,
with nearly a million children, have been helped. Because of
their limited incomes these families had not qualified for the
inequitable tax rebate of earlier times.
In terms of take home pay, our reforms have meant that the
average bloke with a wife and two children, earning about
$ 230 a week that's average weekly earnings is $ 15 a week
better off. This tax bonus applies despite this year's tax
surcharge.
What is also often forgotten when we talk about benefits to
taxpayers is that we have protected the less well-off by
relieving them of the need to pay any income tax at all.
Under our scales up to half a million Australians no longer
have any need to pay income tax, because we lifted Labor's
tax threshold.
Bringing it all together, it means Australians are paying
$ 3,000 million less tax this year than they would have if the
Hayden tax scales still applied. That is the fact that Mr Hayden
is unwilling to face. He won't admit that Labor allowed personal
income taxes to explode. In 1973-74 Labor increased the tax
take by more than 34%, in the next year it jumped by more
than 40%, and in the next again it increased by a further
Compare that to the last three years. In 1976-77 taxes increased
by 14%, the next year by while this year they are estimated
to increase by a fraction over 7%.
That's not a bad tax record. It is a record of managing the
dollars we collect from taxpayers with care and responsibility,
and we flatly reject the big spending and high taxation approach
to economic management.
Remember the last election when Labor was going to abolish our
tax reforms to cut payroll tax for big companies. Their strange
ideas on tax haven't altered. Mr Hayden has refused to deny to
me that he would guarantee that no pensioner, no small businessman,
no householder, or no owner of a farm under 100 acres would not
be hit by his Capital Gains Tax scheme. He also wants a
Resources Tax. He wants a special tax on oil companies. These
are the kinds of policies that brought development in Australia
under Labor to a dead stop.
our policies are getting Australia moving again, and we are going
to keep it that way.