Labor must stick to the myth and find salvation in accordance with the Faustian Agreement to keep the third tax cut.peter lewis

The radical plan to level Australia’s progressive tax system is the bastard child of despicable politics, the Labor Party’s Faustian Pacts made with a ruthless determination to seize power.

What has inspired this brutal attack on egalitarianism is the basic politics of a Scott Morrison-designed divide, where people making $200,000 pay the same 30% tax rate as people making $48,000. Removed the entire scale.

After a scathing election in 2019, it was called the “high tax party,” even if it meant rubber stamping a $9,000 tax cut for those earning over $200,000 and earning just $900. It’s basic politics that convinced Labor that it couldn’t win the president if it was labeled. Cut to the average nurse.

And despite the obvious damage it does to the budget and to the social structure of Australia, it is the underlying politics that now make it so dangerous for the Labor Party to break its promise.

This is the simple political reality of the third tax cut. In an age of unreliable politics driven by anger and angry voices, governments that deliberately break their election promises are throwing themselves into the toaster.

I am not here to condemn the success of the small-target strategy that Labor has adopted to keep the focus on a failing government heading into the last election.

Despite obvious concerns at the time, the Labor opposition at the time was not prepared to allow a wedge to be driven so roughly.

We don’t know how the alternate scenario played out, but it paid off big for the orchestrated attacks by Morrison, Clive Palmer, and Rupert Murdoch that went a long way in stealing the 2019 election. That’s for sure.

The question for the Chancellor, after making his Faustian pact, is how will he face the consequences of this choice: on the budget, on the economy, and most obviously on the people who elected him?

According to this week’s Guardian Essentials report, voter attitudes toward tax changes are lukewarm.

The results of these polls show overwhelming support for a progressive tax system in which the rich pay higher rates than the poor and services are adequately funded. Low tax arguments are much less likely to land.

This suggests that not only can tax realignment win, but the battle over the merits of a solvency-based system could be a political sweet spot for a coalition that always supports the rich. increase.

However, in contrast to these results, which indicate that the Australian public is opposed to broken promises even as circumstances change, this is overwhelmingly not the case.

Naturally, those who believe there is a personal benefit to tax cuts are reluctant to stop them, but it is accepted that if they overcome the big winners, Labor should be able to adapt to changing economic conditions. increase.

Neither solves the problem of defining Albanians in every way as their predecessors did by abandoning promises once broken.

From Keating’s law tax cuts that never materialized to Gillard’s “No Climate Tax” (which never materialized), the godfather of all austerity heralded “no cuts to health, education, ABC.” Not until Abbott’s vow to pinged rarely lies.

The only modern-day survivor of Bald-Faced Porky is John Howard’s “never, never” GST effort, which he recast as a single tenure promise. He then had the wit to bring it into the next election and seek orders to break it.

It is unclear whether the Albanian has the flexibility to postpone and ask for a new mandate. right.

But like this week, delve deeper into the pact’s origin story.

In the parable of Faust, written by Goethe, the protagonist, an alchemist, makes a deal with the devil to exchange his soul for a life of limitless knowledge and worldly joys.

As part of the above pleasure, Mephistopheles becomes Gretchen, a maiden whom Faust has had his way, and then a child. When she discovers the sordid truth of the union, she is so appalled that she kills the bastard child, leaving Faust to grieve his shame.

But in the less-quoted second section of Goethe’s epic, Faust engages in politics to tame the forces of war and nature, making peace with the world. to heaven.

The real point of the Faustian origin story is one of salvation, not the condemnation of original sin. What will it take to save your soul after making a deal with the devil?

The second act of the Faustian drama of the Albanian government is as important as the original deal.

From a seat of power, can we build a tax system suitable for the 21st century? What would a world be like where corporations and the wealthy couldn’t hide their earnings, and capital didn’t take precedence over income?

By revitalizing the care economy, driving the energy transition, and sustaining the NDIS, we can foster a civility that reinterprets taxation as an acceptance expression of citizenship rather than avoiding it as an expression of alienation. can you?

We will use the confidence that comes from not breaking our election promises lightly to ultimately slow down these regressive cuts and seek a new mandate from the Australian people that we remain an important part of our nation. can you ask for

The redemption lies in building not only our progressive tax base claim, but also some of the other equitable fiscal policies that have been jettisoned in pursuit of victory.Negative Gearing, Frank Credits, family trusts, resource rent taxes, inheritance of privileges.

The stakes are high. Like Faust, the eternal soul of this government hangs in the air.

• Peter Lewis is Executive Director of Essential, a progressive strategic communications and research firm. He will discuss the findings of his latest Guardian Essentials report live today at 1pm with Catherine Murphy, political editor of Guardian Australia, and Ebony Bennett, deputy director of the Australian Institute. Click here for free registration