SAVERS BAD, SPENDERS GOOD SAYS LABOR

Labor threatens to throw three decades of hard-earned economic reform and wealth creation out the window by embarking on a populist path of demonising and threatening to pillage people who have saved and built wealth.

We know that many Australians are doing it tough.  But in its crusade against inequality in Australia, Labor’s deputy leader today declared that taxing Australian savers more harshly is “good macro-economic policy”, the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, the Hon Kelly O’Dwyer said today.

“Mr Albanese is implying that people who have saved and invested in small businesses or invested their savings are damaging the economy,” Minister O’Dwyer said.

“Labor’s populist campaign of pitting one Australian against another is a carbon copy of Jeremy Corbyn’s untested socialist manifesto in the UK and trashes decades of bipartisan consensus on policy settings that have benefited the vast majority of Australians.

“The Australian economy has grown over the past quarter century under Labor and Coalition governments because of these policy settings and as a nation we are wealthier as a result.”

On the ABC AM program this morning Mr Albanese said people on lower and middle incomes spent their wages, whereas wealthier people did not.

Mr Albanese is confirming Labor’s pre-occupation with taxing more and spending more. And Labor’s leadership yet again confirmed that it wants to replicate the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd spendathon, Minister O’Dwyer said.

“This is an extraordinary statement. Firstly, people who earn their money are entitled to do whatever they want with it. It is not the property of the state. Secondly, saving money and investing it in building a home, in a small business or in a public company is good for the economy and for jobs,” Minister O’Dwyer said.

“The Coalition believes in small business, in medium business and in large businesses and the hard-working Australians who build these businesses and pay their taxes because that work and those taxes support the free and compassionate society we enjoy.

“Rather than encouraging economic and social inclusion, Bill Shorten’s economic policy platform is one of envy, resentment, negativity and pessimism.  This is the laziest form of politics, pitting Australians against one another. We need to work together to encourage confidence, grow the economy and create policies that employ more people in good jobs with higher pay - not engage in Labor’s class warfare.

“The crass-socialist route to prosperity doesn’t work. It is destructive and dangerous and ultimately results in a shrinking economy that makes things worse for everyone.

“The biggest threat to a free, compassionate society is a Shorten government - whose sole focus would be to destroy the incentives to work, save, invest and employ - and then arbitrarily redistribute a shrinking economic pie.”