1 week Ago By Shane Wright
Australian taxpayers have been promised they will no longer have to collect tax receipts with up to 6 million better off under a new $1000 instant tax deduction unveiled by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at Labor’s federal election campaign launch. In a speech that touched on the trade wars of Donald Trump, accused Peter Dutton and the Coalition of aping the US President and referenced former PM Ben Chifley, Albanese told an adoring audience of 500 in Western Australia that a second term Labor government would build on its achievements over the next three years. Anthony Albanese shakes hands with Julia Gillard before taking the stage.
Credit: Alex Ellinghausen Welcomed to the Perth Convention Centre by a member of the crowd calling out “you bloody legend”, Albanese announced a plan to ensure all first home buyers only need a 5 per cent deposit to get into the property market and to pump $10 billion towards building 100,000 homes specifically for first time owners. But he surprised with an idea that was originally proposed in economist Ken Henry’s landmark tax reform paper of 2010. Albanese said Labor would create a $1000 instant tax deduction for work-related expenses.
Instead of people collecting receipts to back their claim at tax time, workers will be able to claim a standard $1000 deduction for work costs. “Every year, millions of people who work part-time, or work from home, or don’t have an accountant to navigate the tax system for them miss out on claiming deductions they are entitled to and pay more tax than they should,” he said. “This reform fixes that – and it fixes it forever.
It takes away the hassle of tracking your expenses, especially if you work from home. And it gives you back more of your own money, faster.” Albanese said even where a person spent more than $1000, they could still claim a higher deduction in the usual way.
“No-one will be worse off under this reform - but I make this point: nearly 6 million taxpayers - overwhelmingly low and middle income earners and young Australians - will be better off,” he said. The policy joins the budget’s announcement of a modest $10 a week tax cut that will kick-in from mid-2026, compared to today’s move by the Coalition to promise a $1200 one-off cost-of-living offset. Under the Coalition’s plan, taxpayers earning between $48,000 and $104,000 will receive a $1200 offset on next year’s tax return, with roughly half of all taxpayers receiving the maximum offset.
Its plan – limited to a year, like the Coalition’s pledge to cut petrol excise by 25¢ a litre – will be tapered so that taxpayers earning below $48,000 and between $104,000 and $144,000 a year receive a smaller offset. Albanese focused on his new housing policies which follow a string of moves since coming to office including its $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund. He referenced Chifley, prime minister in the 1940s, who started mass public housing construction in the post-war period and said housing was “not only the need but the right of every citizen”.
He accused his political opponents of turning their back on Chifley’s ideals and not understanding that different types of housing solutions were needed. “The right to a roof over your head and the aspiration to own your own home, does not belong in the pages of history, it is fundamental to Australia’s future,” he said. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese leaned heavily into drawing parallels between Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and US President Donald Trump.
Credit: Bloomberg Albanese pushed heavily into linking Dutton to the Trump administration, using much of the early stages of his speech. “The Liberals want to copy from overseas, Labor stands up for Australia. They talk our country down, we build Australians up,” he said.
Albanese also argued that the Coalition was effectively made up of the same people as the Morrison government that lost the 2022 election. But over the past three years, it had become more extreme. “The same people, pushing the same policies that inflicted a wasted decade on our country.
They want to go back to that,” he said. “If anything, they want a more extreme version of it. Back to chaos and confusion, when this moment demands measured leadership and safe hands.
” Albanese and Cook first met in the mid-1980s. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen Albanese also used some of the speech to attack the Coalition’s nuclear power policy which has yet to be fully released, saying the cost of the policy was the equivalent of 18 years of Medicare or 20 years of school funding. Finishing the address, he highlighted the symbol of WA, the black swan, noting under European settlement the bird was unknown outside of Australia.
He said the swan as an example of how Australia was not “shackled by old thinking” or held captive to “the habits and fears of the past”. “Labor’s vision for this country, our plan to build Australia’s future, is not about borrowing ideologies or copying policies from anywhere else, or anyone else,” he said in another reference to the issues playing out in the United States. “It’s about building on what has always been our nation’s greatest strength: the Australian people.
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