JONESY:
Everybody look busy.
AMANDA:
Well the Milky Bars are on this guy. It was a big day in Canberra yesterday. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull secured a major victory with the income tax cut reform. It passed in Parliament. It's a seven year, three stage plan that will eventually see nearly 95 percent of Australians paying less tax. We've got him on the phone this morning. Good morning, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning, Amanda. How are you?
AMANDA:
I'm very well thank you. I know this is the first question everyone is going to ask you but how do we afford this?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it's because we're managing the budget well. We're actually going to bring the budget back into balance a year earlier. We're spending record amounts on schools and hospitals and infrastructure. But what this means is that hard-working Australian families, from next year, will keep more of the money they earn. This is a tax cut, it's the tax relief that will benefit all working Australians and it's a very, very big win for Australian families.
Over the first stage, as you said, next year from July 1, will mean the people on middle incomes will get $530 back from the tax man in addition to whatever their other tax refunds are. It will also mean over time that we'll get to a reform in 2024 where we have from $41,000, all the way up to $200,000 dollars, a marginal tax rate of 32.5 cents. For every extra dollar you earn, you won't pay more than 32.5 cents.
We're getting rid of the 37 cent tax bracket. So it means Amanda, 94 percent of Australians will not pay more than 32.5 cents in any extra dollar they earn. That's great for Australian families who are wanting to get ahead, who are working hard, want to progress, enable their kids to do even better than they have.
This is supporting aspiration, supporting aspirational Australian families.
Of course, sadly, who's opposed it? Who's against it? The Labor Party.
JONESY:
Yeah. Why is Bill not happy?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Bill Shorten has abandoned everything the Labor Party used to stand for. I mean I'm old enough to remember Labor leaders like Neville Wran who was actually a very good friend of mine, and you know Hawke and Keating, they were all about supporting hard-working middle income Australian families to get ahead. You know, to be able to realise their dreams. That's what it was all about. Remember, Mark Latham used to talk about the ladder of opportunity? They've thrown that all away now. They're saying that people who earn $90,000 or $100,000 dollars are, you know, rich millionaires and they want to tax them more.
I mean there are people under Labor's plan, you will see people like, you know, high school teachers, school principals, police sergeants, police superintendents, you know people that on any view are not part of the super-rich, are going to be paying thousands of dollars more in tax.
I have to say, I think there'd be a lot of people who've been Labor voters all their lives would look at Shorten and Plibersek and Albanese and say that is not the Labor Party it used to be. The Fin Review actually had a very good editorial on it yesterday; it just summed it up: they have abandoned aspiration, they've abandoned middle income Australia, they've abandoned Western Sydney.
JONESY:
I like Amanda's nodding her head as if she reads the Fin Review.
PRIME MINISTER:
I mean not everyone reads it every day! And I don't, I don't read editorials every day. I'm just saying, as it happens they nailed it. It's worth having a look at.
AMANDA:
But we won't have any services cut to pay for this?
PRIME MINISTER:
No! Amanda, in fact, we're spending record amounts of money. I mean look what we're doing in Western Sydney on infrastructure with the Western Sydney Airport and the North-South rail link.
Look what we're doing with hospitals. The new five year hospital deal from 2020-21 will involve the federal government spending $30 billion more in addition on hospitals. With the Gonski 2.0, the new school funding, national, consistent needs-based funding, we're spending more money on schools, federal money on schools, every year. We're making sure that we're going to get the outcomes, educational outcomes, for the extra money.
So when Labor says we're cutting spending on schools and hospitals, it is an outright lie. And the budget papers demonstrate that.
JONESY:
What about in the budget is there some money for Amanda to win gold at the Gold Logies? She has been nominated for a Gold Logie and I know you have a lot…
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm told, I'm told she is such a red hot favourite for that that she wouldn't need any additional federal support. But no, Amanda, good luck for that.
JONESY:
Good luck? We need more than good luck! Julie Bishop, the Foreign Minister, said this on our show:
FOREIGN MINISTER - RECORDING:
“Amanda for gold”.
JONESY:
So Prime Minister I ask you this…
PRIME MINISTER:
I will say, “Amanda for gold”.
JONESY:
There it is!
AMANDA:
Prime Minister, thank you. I appreciate it.
JONESY:
Malcolm, you can have a good weekend now?
PRIME MINISTER:
Go the Roosters.
AMANDA:
Absolutely. Go the Roosters.
JONESY:
Where will you be watching the State of Origin from? Will you be there on Sunday night?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no. I'll be – where will I be? I'll be in Sydney. No, I'll just be at home.
JONESY:
We'll be round at your house then.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, hey wasn't that a good game at Shark Park?
JONESY:
Oh, that was a great game!
AMANDA:
Was Jonesy drunk and belligerent?
JONESY:
Tell Lucy to put on the party pies, okay? You know the ones I like.
PRIME MINISTER:
Ok, we'll see you then!
[ENDS]