Greens concerned new super tax rules ‘a gift to the super-rich’
Nick McKim, the Greens’ economic justice spokesperson, says the party remains concerned the government’s new superannuation tax plan will “further [weaken] what should be a tax to ensure the super wealthy top 0.5% pay their fair share”.
McKim said in a statement the proposal made it clear Labor “doesn’t have the guts to tax big corporations and billionaires fairly”, adding:
Of course low income people need some tax relief on their super contributions. This is something the Greens have called for for some time, so we will run the ruler over the changes to low income earners’ superannuation.
Labor has stripped out the tax on unrealised gains and indexed the $3 million threshold, a gift to the super-rich that will cost the budget billions. This is a capitulation to the wealthiest people in the country, and a slap in the face to everyone else who pays their tax straight out of their pay packet.
He said the Greens would look at the full legislation when it is introduced.
The Greens said earlier this year that the party would support a shift in taxation rules to a lower threshold of $2m rather than $3m, but also called for indexation rules to be added to the proposal.
Key events
Benita Kolovos
Back to Victoria where its police chief commissioner is starting the press conference about the complete restructure of the force amid concerns over increasing crime in the state.
Bush has begun his press conference by saying Victoria police “have exceptional people who do a wonderful job under challenging circumstances” but the force is facing two significant issues.
Firstly, he noted a “major crime problem in Victoria”, with the state “way overrepresented” and that there are “far too many victims”:
No one should live in fear of people breaking into their homes overnight, stealing cars, violence in the street, violence at retail outlets, knife crime.
The second problem he said was “the lack of trust and confidence in the Victoria police”:
In terms of those two very significant issues, we need to police differently. We need a reset. We need to reorganise ourselves.
Ted O’Brien says super tax changes a ‘victory for common sense’
Deputy opposition leader Ted O’Brien says treasurer Jim Chalmers’ new superannuation tax plans are a “victory for common sense”.
O’Brien just said during a press conference:
I welcome today’s decision, to dump a tax which was always super big and super bad. …
We have known for a very long time that this tax is very bad for Australians. But the treasurer refused to budge. Now, finally, the government has made the right decision, to dump its superannuation tax regime.
Today is indeed a humiliating day for the treasurer. But it is a victory for common sense; it is a victory for everyday Australians who are otherwise going to be stung by this tax which was fundamentally unfair.
Benita Kolovos
Getting ahead of crime ‘problem’ will require ‘fundamental shift’, commissioner says
Bush said in a statement before the press conference that there was “no escaping” the fact that there was a “crime problem here in Victoria”.
Getting ahead of this crime problem requires consequences for those offenders who drive fear in our communities combined with ongoing swift arrests and proactive operations. But it will also require a fundamental shift in how Victoria Police operates. We need to change how we police, so that we can get ahead of the criminals and stop the offending before it happens.
He said there were 22,000 police, protective service officers and public sector staff across the state, but those on the frontline were not being given enough support. Bush said:
While specialist services within Victoria Police have benefited from considerable investment – and necessarily so – our general duties officers, the backbone of our organisation, have not received the same levels of focus or investment.
They are loaded past their capacity, burdened by bureaucracy and systems that don’t talk to each other. Our structures do not support them as effectively as is needed and nor do our back-of-house functions, technology or processes. If we are to prevent crime, then it starts with properly resourcing and enabling our frontline police officers.
Victoria police executive to be ‘slimmed down’ in significant restructure amid crime surge fears
Benita Kolovos
Victoria police’s chief commissioner, Mike Bush, is holding a press conference at 2.30pm to announce a complete restructure of the force amid concerns over increasing crime in the state.
Under the plan – the most significant structural changes to the force in years – Victoria police’s executive team will be “slimmed down”. There will be a reduction in centralised commands and departments, and frontline police will spend less time on administrative work, such as manning reception desks.
The restructure will also include the following measures:
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A new state crime coordination centre, described by Victoria police as a 24/7 “high-tech hub, that will bring together information, intelligence, and operational capability under one roof” to “identify links between crimes, uncover patterns, and provide real time insights to frontline police”.
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A trial to release sworn officers from police station reception counter duties and replace them with “alternate staff”.
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A trial of “investigation support units” – dedicated admin staff, including former police officers, who will complete arrest paperwork in stations to free up members.
If the trials are successful, Bush said they would be implemented statewide as quickly as possible.
Lisa Cox
Two legal challenges to Woodside’s North West Shelf extension filed on environmental and cultural grounds
Two groups have filed separate legal challenges to the federal environment minister’s approval of Woodside’s North West Shelf extension, one of the world’s biggest liquified natural gas projects.
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and Friends of Australian Rock Art have commenced federal court proceedings in a bid to have the decision overturned.
The environment minister, Murray Watt, gave final approval last month to Woodside’s proposal to extend the life of its North West Shelf gas processing plant, on the Burrup peninsula in northern Western Australia, from 2030 to 2070. ACF’s general counsel, Adam Beeson, said:
We’re challenging the lawfulness of Minister Watt’s approval of this gas hub extension, which is the centrepiece of the most polluting gas project in the southern hemisphere.
Read more here:
Greens concerned new super tax rules ‘a gift to the super-rich’
Nick McKim, the Greens’ economic justice spokesperson, says the party remains concerned the government’s new superannuation tax plan will “further [weaken] what should be a tax to ensure the super wealthy top 0.5% pay their fair share”.
McKim said in a statement the proposal made it clear Labor “doesn’t have the guts to tax big corporations and billionaires fairly”, adding:
Of course low income people need some tax relief on their super contributions. This is something the Greens have called for for some time, so we will run the ruler over the changes to low income earners’ superannuation.
Labor has stripped out the tax on unrealised gains and indexed the $3 million threshold, a gift to the super-rich that will cost the budget billions. This is a capitulation to the wealthiest people in the country, and a slap in the face to everyone else who pays their tax straight out of their pay packet.
He said the Greens would look at the full legislation when it is introduced.
The Greens said earlier this year that the party would support a shift in taxation rules to a lower threshold of $2m rather than $3m, but also called for indexation rules to be added to the proposal.
Keating hails new super tax rules a ‘huge policy achievement’
The former prime minister Paul Keating has just responded to the new superannuation tax changes, saying they will resolve a political “impasse” and ensure “that superannuation accumulations will be successfully taxed”.
Keating released a long statement, pointing to changes by John Howard and Peter Costello in 2007 to abolish the Keating government’s “reasonable benefit limits” for superannuation that placed an upper limit on the tax benefits you could obtain in the system. He wrote:
The government and Treasurer Chalmers have spent well over a year seeking to [devise] a method whereby the Howard/Costello runaway scheme could, with all reasonableness, be brought under control by setting new permissible limits and above which taxation applied at a higher rate. …
The Treasurer’s success in working through and resolving this impasse will now mean that superannuation accumulations will be successfully taxed but taxed only on a basis of realisation, but more than that, taxed at a new limit and at a higher rate, restoring much needed equity following the Howard/Costello rampage of 2007.
Keating went on to say there was little doubt Chalmers had seen “great difficulty” setting new upper limits, but said the changes would be a “huge policy achievement”.
It is reform of a kind that shares substance with necessity. Necessity that every government since 2007 has conveniently overlooked or simply regarded as too difficult.
Importantly, these decisions solidify superannuation tax arrangements in a manner the community can now rely upon for the long-term security of their retirement savings and with it, their peace of mind.
Josh Taylor
Yahoo probed on ‘inappropriate’ bald heads on site
Yahoo, which was a popular search engine years before Google’s domination but is now considered a “challenger” site, has faced questions from Liberal senator Sarah Henderson over a BuzzFeed article featured on its homepage during a Senate inquiry.
The inquiry is examining search engine and social media age verification, as well as other incoming internet codes.
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Henderson asked Yahoo’s director of public policy, Logan Smith, why the BuzzFeed article, which featured the bald heads of two men behind a woman, was on the website’s homepage:
I’ve just had a look at your website, and you’re displaying on the front page, the homepage of the website, a photograph which looks like a woman exposing her buttocks. Then when you go into it, you see that there are two bald heads in front of the woman. But it was clearly designed to look as if a woman was in a very inappropriate and sexually explicit position, can I ask you to explain why that’s on your homepage?
Smith replied that it was likely partner content from a third party. Henderson said:“It shouldn’t matter, it’s on your homepage.” She said:
I’m concerned, based on your assurances that there is, there isn’t inappropriate content on your homepage, and that Yahoo is not taking that obligation seriously enough.
Smith said no policy or filter was foolproof, meaning Yahoo would rely on manual user reports.
Henderson also said she saw an ad by Temu “promoting what I can only say is an explicit BDM type costume, which I won’t describe in detail, but I would put to you is also very inappropriate for a younger audience”.
Smith took the questions on notice, but said there were ad policies in place.
‘No good reason’ for high and low income earners to get same super tax concessions, Chalmers says
Chalmers just summed up one of the baseline ideas behind some of the changes in a quick sentence:
Really what I’m saying here is there is no good reason for people with hundreds of millions of dollars in super to get the same kind of tax concessions as people with smaller balances, and that’s what this change reflects.
Chalmers has had ‘initial’ conversation on changes with the Greens
Chalmers said he has had an “initial conversation” about the changes with the Greens leader, Larissa Waters, after cabinet agreed to the recommendations. The treasurer said Waters would confer with her colleagues and the Greens would make their position on the matter known “in due course”.
Chalmers said:
I have appreciated throughout and I appreciate today the opportunity to engage constructively with the Greens in the Senate …
It was a constructive conversation [and] I do not want to pre-empt the Greens party room. They will consider this.
Guardian Australia has reached out to Waters for comment.
Chalmers says government always takes feedback ‘seriously’, reflecting changes to super tax plans
Chalmers was asked if this is a major retreat from the initial plans to change the superannuation tax system. He said:
As treasurer and as a government we always try to take feedback seriously. We always try to find the best way through …
We found another way to satisfy the same objectives. It means a fairer superannuation system from top to bottom, and means a better outcome for people on the lowest incomes and better targeted concessions for people with the biggest balances.
And that is a good outcome from our point of view.
Fourteen times more people will benefit from new super thresholds than be adversely affected, Chalmers says
Summing up these changes (and justifying them), Chalmers says:
This is a government which takes feedback seriously, which works through issues and advice in a methodical and a considered way, and you’re seeing the fruits of that today. Our superannuation system is the envy of the world. It is a proud Labor creation, but it has its imperfections, and today, with these announcements, we are addressing at least two of them – the sustainability of concessions in the highest balances, and also adequacy for women and low income earners. And in doing that, we are reinforcing the objective of super as a vehicle for decent retirement savings. This goes hand in hand with our other reforms. We’ve actually done a lot to strengthen super, to make it fairer and more sustainable. We’ve legislated the objective. We got super to 12% – we’re making the changes so that we have payday super, we’re paying the superannuation guarantee on paid parental leave, and we’ll also make sure that the performance test is doing its job as well.
I wanted to leave you with this comparison: 14 times more people will benefit from the low income super changes than will be impacted by the better targeted tax concessions. This is a fairer superannuation system from top to bottom, and it’s another part of us ensuring, as a Labor government, that more Australians are earning more, keeping more of what they earn, and also retiring with more.
Chalmers signals more consultation on treatment of earlier capital gains
Chalmers says the third area of further consultation is to “find the best way to adjust the treatment of capital gains accrued prior to the start of these new arrangements, to make sure that we’ve got the base appropriately captured when it comes to the new calculations”.
