CANBERRA, Australia, May 20 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, promised to take swift action to legislate wide-scale tax cuts after winning Saturday’s general election.
Morrison’s Liberal-National Party coalition (LNP) defied opinion polls to win a third term in power on Saturday, defeating the Australian Labour Party (ALP).
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) today (Monday), projected that the party would win 77 out of 151 seats at the lower house of the Australian parliament, enough to govern in its own right, without depending on the support of independent Members of Parliament (MP’s).
After spending Sunday attending church and going to watch a rugby league game, Morrison today went back to work, saying he was keen to reconvene parliament as soon as possible.
Doing so will allow the LNP to legislate the pledged 158 billion Australian dollars (109.2 billion U.S. dollars) in tax cuts, that was the centrepiece of its re-election campaign, and of the Federal Budget for 2019/20 delivered by Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, in April.
“We put the budget to the people, the whole thing, we handed down a budget, we now expect to pass a budget in its entirety.”
Under the tax plan, every Australian who earns between 45,000 Australian dollars (31,100 U.S. dollars) and 200,000 Australian dollars (138,223 U.S. dollars) will be subject to the same tax rate of 30 percent by financial year 2024/25.
Morrison today agreed with the assessment of John Howard, the LNP prime minister between 1996 and 2007, who on Saturday night said that pursuing “class warfare” cost the ALP.
The ALP and leader Bill Shorten oppose the LNP’s tax cuts, instead promising greater tax cuts for low-income earners that would have been paid for by closing tax loopholes that benefit the wealthy.
Simon Birmingham, a South Australian LNP senator, who served as the party’s official campaign spokesman, repeated Morrison’s message, saying that the party was focused on its economic agenda.
“We’re going to get on with our economic plan, with our job creation plan. We will seek to legislate our plans to reduce the tax burden on Australians, as soon as we possibly can,” he said.– NNN-AGENCIES
