It was hard not to laugh at reports last week that Peter Dutton had labelled the teal independents — representing some of Australia’s wealthiest electorates — a “radical extreme communist movement”. The independents themselves certainly had a chuckle.
Dutton says he was referring specifically to the Greens. But he was eager to rope in the “Green-teals”, suggesting they all belonged in the same pinko basket. “The Greens are at least out there and open about the lunacy of their own positions,” Dutton told 2GB. “But many of the Green-teals are hiding behind a thin veil.”
It’s ludicrous, of course, to suggest any teal independents are secret radicals — a sign of how far off the deep-end conservatives have gone. But to imply that Wentworth MP Allegra Spender, former McKinsey analyst, daughter of fashion designer Carla Zampatti and a former Liberal MP — and holder of a $40 million property portfolio — is a communist may just be the biggest joke of all.
“I don’t look very much like a communist,” Spender laughs when I ask about the Coalition’s “Green-teal” jibes that have been levelled at the community indies all term. “This name-calling, I think it backfires on the Coalition because it looks like the same old politics as usual.”
She wasn’t laughing a few weeks ago, however, when attack ads began appearing around her affluent seat alleging she wanted to raise taxes. The ads come from the right-wing group “Australians for Prosperity” — funded by the coal lobby and run by an ex-Liberal MP — which is targeting Liberal enemies with misleading tax claims.
It was ironic, Spender told The Australian Financial Review, given she’d led the charge against Labor’s tax changes for super balances of more than $3 million while pushing a tax green paper that would see income tax reduced.
Her opposition to Labor’s super changes is based on concerns it applies to unrealised capital gains and the $3 million threshold not being indexed. But she is unwilling to say whether she would back increasing taxes on large super balances if or when those issues are ironed out.
It calls to mind a conversation we had a year and a half ago, in which she was unwilling to admit that addressing wealth inequality would involve the rich getting less rich. I remind her of this and ask whether her recent green paper suggests, in a more nuanced way, that the wealthy need to pay more so that working people can pay less.
Talking over the phone, Spender offers a word salad in response, suggesting we need to get the tax system “working for younger people” while avoiding “class wars” and “grievance politics”.
“It’s not simple, there are trade-offs in this,” she says. “But it’s really about saying, how do you get the equity between the generations? And how do you make this system work?”
Indeed, levelling the playing field in a nation where the rich have grown accustomed to paying less will not be a simple process. Especially with cynical groups like “Australians for Prosperity” attacking anyone who dares mention reform, and a Liberal leader who reckons centrist liberals are part of a “radical extreme communist movement”.
Reading Spender’s green paper ahead of our chat, I was surprised at its focus on intergenerational inequality — though less so by the sections on driving productivity and the climate transition.
While the paper doesn’t make policy prescriptions, it calls out the unfairness of a tax system that “provides bigger rewards for passive income and property investment” than for working — disadvantaging young people — and proposes tax settings that favour home ownership. “Reducing tax concessions for capital gains tax and negative gearing could both fund cuts to taxes on labour income, and increase home ownership,” it suggests, debunking a common claim this would lead to increased rents.
Spender has spent much of the past year talking about this intergenerational inequity piece. She has stats about the wealth and housing gap at her fingertips. She finds this is something the people of Wentworth are concerned about, whether it personally affects them or not.
“We’re becoming a country where what determines whether you get ahead or not is basically how wealthy your parents are,” she says. “I don’t think people in my community want to live in a place like that.”
The fact Spender’s green paper explicitly mentions the political bogeymen of negative gearing and the capital gains tax was perhaps the biggest surprise — though not when you consider the involvement of former Treasury secretary Ken Henry, author of Australia’s last major tax review, who has long called for reform.
Spender is less willing to criticise negative gearing, though insists everything must be on the table if we are to fix our broken system. I put to Spender that her paper may be why “Australians for Prosperity” is claiming she wants to raise taxes — not that its attacks are particularly specific.
“I think maybe,” she says. “But I have to say, this is the same old political playbook that so many people voted against … I’m trying to have a sophisticated conversation with the electorate and engage them on the difficult issues and the trade-offs so we can get to long-term answers, and they just want to run a short-term scare campaign.”
Spender is frustrated at how wedge politics gets in the way of serious tax reform, with many MPs only willing to call for it on their way out the door.
“I think there are a lot of good people in the major parties, but they are constrained by the politics and the wedging of this,” she adds. “There’s a desire to make that change, but they’re just caught in this electoral cycle. It’s just power, power, as opposed to saying, ‘Well, how do we fix this stuff?’”
Given all that, it’s a shame I can’t get Spender to endorse the fact that some Australians (specifically older, wealthier Australians) need to pay more tax in order for us to fix our broken intergenerational bargain — even though that’s what her green paper heavily implies.
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