JOE Hockey has denied his May budget measures are tougher on the poor than well off households.
The Treasurer this morning said it was “wrong” that low income families were the biggest losers of the Abbott government’s first budget.
He was responding to a Fairfax report citing Treasury analysis, which showed when all factors are accounted for, spending cuts will leave an average low income family $844 per year worse off in disposable income (earnings after tax and government payments).
That’s compared to middle income families losing $492 and high income families $517.
But Mr Hockey labelled the reporting of the figures, obtained via a Freedom of Information request, as “deliberately misleading”.
“That story is wrong because it fails to take into account a range of things like the fact that higher income households pay half their income in tax, low income households pay virtually no tax,” he told Channel Nine’s Today Show.
“It does not represent the true state of affairs.”
The information was made available to the Coalition ahead of the May budget and according to the report does not take into account the proposed $7 GP co-payment.
Three months on and Mr Hockey and his colleagues are still trying to get support for the co-payment as well as other key measures.
Ahead of meetings with more new crossbench Senators, the Treasurer admitted there is “a lot of work to do”.
The government has had success in implementing a temporary deficit levy which will directly target high income earners that more than $180,000 a year.
Source: news.com.au
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