Australia news live: Queensland Labor ahead in Stafford byelection despite large swing

Follow the day’s news live Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Jim Chalmers says the opposition’s policy to index tax brackets would cost the budget a quarter of a trillion dollars over ten years, while claiming that the government is returning bracket creep to taxpayers. It’s a slightly tricky position, as Angus Taylor argues that Labor is “betraying” itself because the high figure is actually how much the government is keeping and spending through bracket creep ever year. This is a Government that returns bracket creep when it is responsible to do that. That [policy] would cost tens of billions of dollars in extra debt interest, because he’s got these uncosted, unfunded, tax announcements that he [Taylor] made in his budget reply, which was all about trying to stave off One Nation.” What Angus Taylor is proposing to do is to pump the most money into the economy when inflation is already at its highest. “This betrays the fact that the government plans to raise income tax rates to the tune of $35 billion This says more about their plan than our plan ... If Labor’s saying that they plan to raise income taxes to the tune of $250 billion in the next 10 years ... [if] that is their tax hike, that’s their planned income tax increases.” Continue reading...