This is not your grandfather’s “class war election”

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Via The Australian:

Bill Shorten has taken a major ­political gamble ahead of the crucial Super Saturday by-elections by refusing to back the government’s $144 billion in personal income tax cuts and vowing to repeal the bulk of the package if the ­Coalition manages to legislate it.

The Opposition Leader yesterday accelerated his class-war campaign against Malcolm Turnbull by rejecting the government’s bid to fix income tax bracket creep, while promising “bigger, better” tax cuts for up to 10 million workers if Labor wins the next federal election.

Mr Shorten said a future Labor government would go to the July 28 by-elections, and the next federal election, campaigning to axe the second and third-stage cuts, which address bracket creep ­on salaries between $37,000 and $200,000 a year.

And more at Domainfax:

The next federal election is shaping as the great class war of 2018-19, with 10 million taxpayers drafted to the cause. No election in the last 50 years has come close.

That Bill Shorten is prepared to stand between moderate income earners and legislated tax relief in order to stop tax cuts for the rich reveals Labor’s confidence that it can prosecute a class argument, and from there, win an election.

Labor is asking the bulk of voters to make a leap of faith: to gamble that Labor will win and, after that, deliver a fairer distribution to more households.

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Echoing press gallery garbage, as usual. An election fought over tax cuts is not one based upon class. Fair dinkum Left does not do tax cuts at all. It does tax hikes and redistribution. If the Left were serious about class war it would also be installing import tariffs and massively cutting immigration to boost wages. Either that or running on universal basic income and nationalising clearly corrupt banks.

This election is a fight between Righter and Righterer. Labor is the first, with its tax cuts for lower income households. The Coalition is the second with its tax cuts for the rich and corporations. But Labor is also offering many other tax incentives to business.

The coming election is a dinner table spat between two parties of the Right committed to low Aussie wages via mass immigration and all incentives for the importation of foreign capital, as well as making the rich richer. There is nobody Left in the picture at all so how can it be about class?

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Where there is one inter-generational/class difference is in housing policy. The Righter wants to unleash market forces to lower prices. The Righterer wants to artificially boost prices any way it can for its greedy mates and because it just loves the taste of seared kiddy flesh.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.