Neil Mitchell has slammed Anthony Albanese’s government for having a plan to punish baby boomers as younger ns increasingly decide elections.
The 73-year-old 3AW host, from the boomer generation, suggested Treasurer Jim Chalmers had an agenda to tax older ns over 60.
‘Boomers beware. Jim Chalmers is taking about “intergenerational justice” in tax,’ he said.
‘That means a tax on boomers, who actually did a bit to build this country.’
Chalmers used his National Press Club address this week to suggested Labor would use its landslide re-election to help younger ns, with a hint about new taxes being considered to pay for this new relief.
Millennials and Generation Z voters – born after 1981 – outnumbered boomers at the last election for the first time ever.
‘The decisions we make in the 2020s will determine the sort of living standards and intergenerational justice that we have in the decades to come,’ Chalmers said.
‘I think there is a broad recognition of that.’
Labor was re-elected last month with a plan to slash student debt by 20 per cent, saving the average graduate $5,520 at a cost to taxpayers of $16billion.
It also offered tax cuts for low-income workers earning $18,200 to $45,000, with students, apprentices and part-time workers more likely to be young.
This relief is set to cost the Budget $17.1billion over four years.
That means Labor would either have to cut spending or increase taxes to fund relief that overwhelmingly favours the young, with Treasury only forecasting Budget deficits in coming years as gross government debt soars above $1trillion.
That could see Labor review generous tax concessions on things like family trusts that can avoid paying tax on income generated from within the trust.
Former Labor leader Bill Shorten lost the 2019 election proposing a new 30 per cent tax on family trusts as funds were distributed to beneficiaries.
While that policy was scrapped, the government’s upcoming productivity roundtable in August is expected to explore a range of new revenue-raising options, with Chalmers hinting at tax changes.
‘The easiest thing in the world is for people to come to us and say we want you to dramatically cut the taxes in our part of the economy and spend dramatically more on our industry, without recognising that there are necessary trade‑offs associated with that,’ Chalmers said.
The government is still proceeding with plans to impose a new 15 per cent tax on unrealised gains on superannuation balances above $3million, in a bid to raise $2.3billion a year in revenue.
In Opposition, Albanese vowed to leave untouched franking tax credits for company shareholders and negative gearing tax breaks for investor landlords, even though house prices have surged at a faster pace since the pandemic.
Labor also has no plans to introduce a capital gains tax on the family home.
These existing arrangements favour boomers who were able to buy a house to live in cheaply after the capital gains tax debuted in 1985.
Chalmers this week downplayed a point about government payments making up 27 per cent of the economy – the highest level since 1986 outside of the pandemic.
‘It’s not the highest spending since the 80s. I know that you mean absent Covid, but I think it’s unusual that we absent Covid,’ he said.
‘Quite frequently I’ll hear we’ve got the weakest growth in 40 years, or we’ve got the highest spending. That’s not true.’
Boomers still have political power with both Albanese and Opposition Leader Sussan Ley hailing from that generation, covering those born from 1946 to 1964.
Chalmers belongs to Generation X, spanning 1965 to 1980, along with every state premier. Only the Northern Territory has a Millennial leader.