Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said it was “nonsense” to say he had not been upfront with voters as he refused to apologise for multiple broken promises.
Mr Albanese declined to apologise for his broken promises on negative gearing and capital gains tax on Sunday, following broken promises on housing, super and energy.
He rejected that he owed voters an apology when pressed by Sky News Sunday Agenda, saying it was “nonsense” that he had not been clear with the public.
Rather than accepting the premise, he defended the government’s decision to shift its position, arguing it was necessary in response to economic conditions.
“What I’m doing here, is what I was elected to do, which was to do the right thing for the nation,” he said.
“Now you can sit back and say, ‘Well we acknowledge that there’s a problem with housing in this country… but we can’t do anything about it’.
“Or you can say, ‘I’m going to make a difficult decision for the right reasons to help the nation’.”
The Albanese government has scrapped negative gearing entitlements for existing properties, after previously saying it would not change the previous system.
It has also moved to impose a minimum 30 per cent tax on capital gains, repealing the previous 50 per cent capital gains discount.
Asked whether he would apologise to voters for promising before the election he wouldn’t touch tax settings, he suggested he had nothing to apologise for.
“Let’s be very clear. Anyone who has a negatively geared property has had no change to being able to continue to have that negative gearing,” he said.
“There’s been a lot of misinformation out there indeed. Some of the proponents of the memes have acknowledged, have said, well it wasn’t accurate, it wasn’t real.
“What we will do is we will pass this legislation. It will make a positive difference for Australians. It will enable more young Australians to get into their first home.”
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has gained significant public attention for her “Fire the Liar” campaign attacking Mr Albanese and his broken promises.
Mr Albanese said it was “nonsense” to suggest he was not upfront with people about the tax changes.
“Well that’s nonsense. The fact is that One Nation pretend that they stand for battlers whilst getting planes given to them by Australia’s richest person,” he said.
The comments come amid continued political debate over Labor’s tax and housing reforms, including capital gains tax changes and restrictions on negative gearing.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor told Sky News Sunday Agenda the government had failed the economy.
“Look, what we’ve seen from this Treasurer, apart from the fact that he and the Prime Minister lied, in the Prime Minister’s own words 50 times before the last election.
“I hear him crowing about his election victory, having lied to the Australian people 50 times. He thinks that’s completely fine, obviously.
“But what’s clear is that these taxes are going to hurt aspiration in this country. They are an assault on aspiration, on ambition, on investment.
“And what we have is a Labor government that doesn’t understand small business, doesn’t understand business at all, because most of them have never worked in it.”
Mr Albanese and Mr Chalmers recently backtracked on their capital gains tax overhaul for small businesses and trusts, announcing a new turnover threshold.
Under the new changes, Labor will increase the turnover threshold for small businesses to access the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount from $2 million to $10 million.
However, the business community has suggested this clamps down on having any aspiration to grow a company beyond $10 million.
“What I say to them is that the aspiration is the same as for every worker to aspire to more income, to aspire to be better off in life,” Mr Albanese said.