http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-28/labor-blocking-five-billion-of-own-savings-measures/5684750
Fact check: Labor blocking $5 billion of its own savings measures
- The claim: Mathias Cormann says Labor is opposing $5 billion in savings that it initiated when it was in government.
- The verdict: Labor is blocking three measures which would save the budget more than $5 billion and which it initiated when in government.
The bottom line
Senator Cormann says three measures originally proposed by Labor are now being blocked.
The Government's legislation to pursue changes to R&D concessions is identical to changes introduced in draft legislation by the ALP in 2013.
Its legislation to abandon tax cuts linked to the carbon tax mirrors Labor's 2011 law introducing those cuts, which Labor said in 2013 it intended to defer.
Savings proposed from changes to the higher education packagereflect those identified in Labor's last budget.
The Opposition says it refuses to support the R&D savings and the higher education changes because the resulting savings will not be used by the Coalition as Labor had originally intended. However, the Government's measures remain the same. Labor, in two Senate committee reports, admits as much.
Labor says the legislation reversing income tax cuts originally intended to offset the impact of the carbon tax is not the same as the Coalition's legislation, because Labor's deferral was always temporary, whereas the Coalition's legislation makes the reversal permanent. Given the Coalition has repealed the carbon tax, the carbon price will never reach $25.40 a tonne. So there is no reason to defer the tax cuts rather than abandon them.
The verdict
While Labor says it has good reason for blocking the legislation, each of the three areas had been identified by it as an appropriate way to find savings, regardless of how the savings would be applied.
In any event, Senator Cormann is not making a claim about why Labor is blocking legislative changes that it proposed first, only that it is.
The measures that Labor is opposing would save the budget more than $5 billion.
Senator Cormann is correct.
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