There is more trouble in the polls for the Government with new numbers showing voters are overwhelmingly opposed to a planned raise in the pension age or scrapping bulk billing.
According to the poll 69 percent believe the pension age should be left where it is. This follows another poll yesterday which suggested that if an election were held today the coalition would lose, with a voter backlash mounting over the planned new debt tax.
Two party-preferred support for the coalition has plunged 5.5 percentage points since the September election, the Galaxy poll commissioned by News Corp Australia has found. The coalition sits on 48 per cent, compared to Labor’s 52 per cent. Voters have abandoned the government, the poll suggests, over its deficit tax plan, with 72 per cent of respondents saying it represents a broken promise.
The Government is meanwhile playing down the new polling data.Assistant Infrastructure Minister Jamie Briggs yesterday downplayed suggestions that imposing a deficit levy would be a broken promise, telling Sky News the Government must ‘do the heavy lifting’ to get the books back into the black.
‘What would be a broken police is if we squibbed it and we let this budget go by without putting in place short, medium and long term measures to fix the budget because that was our overwhelming promise”The reality is the Australian people were given $900 for free – and nothing in life is for free’.But the Opposition says a tax hike on higher income earners is not just a broken promise, it would be a bad policy.
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen has told Sky News that a tax increase would hurt the country internationally.’The globalised world, where you’re competing with the best and the brightest in the world – the old days of just the easy solution of whacking up a marginal tax rate every time you have a problem are gone’.’And for Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott to go down this road, when they promised no new taxes, but also promised to be a low taxing governement is an insult to the Australian people, very bad policy and very bad economics.
‘Yesterday angry workers took to streets around the nation, protesting any cut to the minimum wage.Thousands joined the Labour Day marches, buoyed by a poll saying the federal coalition would be kicked out of office if an election was held now. But with the next one not due for more than two years, unionists fear the minimum wage will be slashed as recommended by the recent national commission of audit.
Queensland’s Council of Unions president John Battams said if the recommendation to cut the wage from $16 to $12 an hour was adopted, Australian wages would moved into United States territory. ‘That would result in a huge pool of working poor in Australia,’ he told reporters in Brisbane. ‘About one-and-a-half million Australians depend on the minimum wage to actually make ends meet.’
It’s understood there are rumblings in the cabinet room, with senior Liberals, including deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, holding reservations about the planned tax. The coalition’s primary vote has fallen from 45.5 per cent at the election to just 39 per cent now.
Labor, however, is still languishing on 37 per cent, and has not been able to gain traction from the hit to Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s coalition. The Greens have picked up more than two percentage points, with voters also migrating to independent candidates and other minor parties.
Galaxy has found 65 per cent those polled disagree with the government’s paid maternity leave scheme in the current budgetary environment, News Corp reports.
The prime minister recently announced the wage cap for his signature policy would be reduced to $100,000 a year, from $150,000. But the national commission of audit, which released its report on Thursday, recommends that should be watered down further to be capped at average annual earnings. Cabinet will hold talks again on Wednesday and Treasurer Joe Hockey will hand down his first budget on May 13.
The Galaxy poll was taken between April 30 and May 1 and results are based on the opinions of 1391 voters.
source: skynews.com.au
STUDIO 3 NEWCASTLE AUSTRALIA 