The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has rejected suggestions the government’s $8.6bn cost of living package is an attempt to bribe voters as Labor savages the Coalition’s budget as a “cynical ploy” to get re-elected.
With the Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, to unveil a major health policy in his budget in reply speech on Thursday night, the opposition is painting this year’s budget as a political document only focused on the May election.
Labor waved the cost of living measures through parliament’s lower house on Wednesday, which include a one-off $250 payment for pensioners and welfare card holders, a $420 boost to the low and middle income tax offset, and a 22 cent per litre cut to the fuel excise.
But Albanese said the handout was aimed at securing the government a fourth term in office when voters go to the polls in May, saying “they may as well have stapled cash” to people’s how-to-vote cards.
“Last night’s budget … was a cynical exercise by a cynical government that doesn’t have a plan for Australia’s future, they just have a plan for themselves,” Albanese told the ABC.
“This is a plan for an election, not a plan for Australia’s future. And I think people will see it for what it is.”
The shadow treasurer, Jim Chalmers, criticised the budget for not doing more beyond the short-term cost of living relief, saying Labor’s budget in reply speech would offer a different approach, with policies designed to improve productivity, grow the economy and boost wages.
“So the difference in approach is, Labor can see beyond the May election; we think that there’s a role for investment in cleaner and cheaper energy, Tafe and training to deal with this skill shortage that we have; childcare, advanced manufacturing, the care economy … there’s a range of things which were missing from the budget which are absolutely crucial to our growth prospects going forward. We’re attentive to that even if the government’s not,” Chalmers said.
Albanese’s budget in reply speech is expected to focus on health, with a plan to “strengthen Medicare” the centrepiece policy announcement.
Labor has already presented policies for childcare, Tafe, advanced manufacturing and energy, as it seeks to finalise a limited suite of promises to take into the election campaign.
He will give his budget in reply speech on Thursday night after the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, addresses the Australian parliament.
Morrison, who is expected to call the election within days after parliament rises on Thursday, rejected criticism that the budget was political in nature and designed to win back voters who have abandoned the Coalition.
He said the cost of living package was “necessary support” that would cement the country’s recovery out of the pandemic.
“Cost of living pressures are real and Australians need that support now,” Morrison said.
“We’ve got to give Australians a shield against these cost of living pressures that could frustrate and break up the momentum that the economy is building. We want Australians getting to their feet – and they are and strongly – not to be then buffeted by these strong cost of living pressures that are coming from the war in Ukraine.”
But the prime minister’s budget sales pitch was overshadowed by criticism levelled at him by the NSW Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, who told the Senate on Tuesday night shortly after the budget was delivered that Morrison was “not fit” for office.
Morrison dismissed the character assassination as coming from someone who had been “disappointed” after losing her spot on the NSW Senate ticket.
Morrison also stumbled when asked about how the budget would help people struggling with the sky-rocketing price of rent, telling Channel Nine’s Today program that “the best way to support people renting a house is to help them buy a house.”
In a post-budget speech to the national press club on Wednesday, the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, committed to returning the petrol excise to its full amount at the end of the six-month reprieve, saying the measure was only intended to be temporary.
“We have been very clear, only six months,” he said.
He said the measure would reduce inflation by a quarter of a percentage point, and would end on 28 September when Treasury was forecasting oil prices to moderate.
He also rejected suggestions the government was going to the election with the promise of an effective tax hike after reaffirming the decision to end the low and middle income tax offset this year.
“It was never meant to be a permanent feature of the tax system,” he said.
Frydenberg would not say how much the extra stimulus – pumped into the economy through the $5.6bn cash payments and tax boost – would add to inflation, but said the entire package was worth less than half a percentage point of GDP.
“These were very temporary, targeted, responsible measures that are designed to help people at the time they need it the most,” he said.
