We’ll chart the reaction to the Henry tax review and the government’s response here as it unfolds. All times are AEST. Refresh the page for updates.
2:30 Live blog on the Daily Telegraph now with leading accountant Anthony Bell.
2:00 Wayne Swan’s interview on 2GB this morning has ended in a clash with 2GB host Ray Hadley listen here.
11:00 The Australian is reporting that Treasurer Wayne Swan has left the door open to adopting more review recommendations in the federal budget next week.
10.25am: The miners have copped it on the share market this morning. According to AAP on opening this morning: BHP Billiton was down $1.50, or 3.68 per cent, at $39.25 while Rio Tinto was down $3.79, or 5.26 per cent, at $68.31. Fortescue Metals Group fell 18 cents or 3.93 per cent, at $4.40 and gold miner Newcrest slipped $1.13, or 3.41 per cent, to $31.96.
10.22am: Joe Hockey’s on Brisbane radio 4BC right now. You can listen here.
10.05am: South Australian treasurer Kevin Foley reckons it’s a win for the mining companies. His comments are here on AdelaideNow.
9.49am: From ABC reporter Simon Cullen on Twitter: “Abbott says Rudd’s tax response is a bit of “political jiggery-pokery”... not sure how to spell that one…”
9.42am: Wayne Swan will be taking questions from readers in a live online Q&A at the Herald Sun this morning from 10am here.
9.41am: Kevin Rudd’s going to march this morning in the Brisbane Labour Day parade. Am guessing he won’t want to get too close to the guys from the CFMEU.
9.18am: Choice reader comment from Adam:
I can see Swan reading the report…
Blah Blah Blah. Wow, mining can be taxed into oblivion. Thanks Henry.
Henry: What about the rest?
Swan: The what?
8.56am: More from Kochie ... the Sunrise host has been calling the government’s response “wimpy”. In a column for News Ltd papers today he elaborates on his view.
I suppose we should have all known this would happen. This was meant to be the tax version of the 2020 Summit. Nothing has come of that either.
8.54am: What the nation is reading... Well, it’s early days yet, ultimately it means very little and the Henry review wash-up will no doubt build interest as the day unfolds. But still, at The Australian:
and at news.com.au:
We’re on this story too: Punch fashion writer Nedahl Stelio has our coverage of the Logies red carpet here.
8.26am: Picture time - a little stunt the Coalition leader pulled last night, with a sticker over the front of the Henry review papers. “Not lower” might be a clever line but it’s not accurate across the board as company tax is to be cut, which will affect some 1.7million companies.
8.18am: Tony Abbott on AM says the resources tax is “Kevin Rudd’s plan to kill [the mining boom] stone dead”. Says he believes voters understand the importance of the mining companies to the economy, and rejects a comparison between his plan to tax bigger companies to pay for paid parental leave and the resources rent tax. Adds, however, that “in a perfect world” company taxes should be coming down. “This is a government that is absolutely allergic to anything that requires courage,” he says.
8.13am: Kevin Rudd on AM - emphasises the government’s response is a “first set of measures”. AM spoke to some voters at a pub who were enthusiastic about the superannuation increases, and also broadly happy about slugging the big mining companies. Restates his argument that Australians haven’t benefited enough from the resources boom, and that much of the profits from it have gone overseas.
7.49am... More reaction: The only new tax here is on credulity, says Simon Benson in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.
7.26am: Kochie’s verdict. The Sunrise anchor waves around a copy of the giant Henry review papers. Says the equivalent of just a couple of pages have been adopted from the entire document.
On the compulsory super contributions rising from 9 to 12 per cent, Kochie says: “Henry didn’t recommend this at all, the government’s just pulled this out of its ... (lip-biting pause) ... you-know-what.” Points out we don’t get to 12 per cent until 2020.
Guest is Alex Malley, chief executive of Certified Practising Accountants, who says the Henry review is “exemplary”, but the “wave of reform” expected never came. Thrust of his argument is it was a missed opportunity for the government.
Kochie’s list of “no-brainers” that aren’t being implemented include simplifying deductions for work expenses, using Tax File Numbers to keep track of super, and charging GST on insurance policies.
Segment wraps up and cuts straight back to “Golden Galah!” Ray Meagher’s triumph at the Logies, and an interview with the great man himself.
7.15am: The breakfast TV shows
The Today Show leads its 7am bulletin on the government’s argument that the new tax on the profits of mining companies will help fund superannuation contributions and a cut to company tax, but also that the money will help mining towns. A short line from the opposition saying it will direct investment overseas.
On Sunrise David Koch spruiks an upcoming segment on the “no-brainers” among Henry’s recommendations the government should have introduced. The news bulletin, perhaps unsurprisingly, leads on “sentimental favourite” and “Home and Away legend” Ray Meagher winning the Gold Logie beating “Channel 7 stablemate” Rebecca Gibney. The Henry coverage leads on the PM starting the “hard sell” on the reforms by “addressing the nation on Seven’s Sunday Night program”. “The studio audience loved plans to increase compulsory superannuation to 12%,” says Natalie.
6am: The morning papers:
The Australian: Swan mines boom to boost super
Dennis Shanahan: The policy purity and the logic of the Henry tax review reforms have collided with the political reality and financial limits of a Labor government that is strapped for cash in an election year.
SMH: Swan plucks golden goose
Peter Hartcher: What are Rudd and Swan planning? They aren’t waiting for windfalls to waste them haphazardly - they’re making a pre-emptive strike on them, intending to give them away in a planned way. And the plan is? To get themselves re-elected while selling a barely plausible economic cover story.
AFR: Swan Picks the Big Tax Winners
Laura Tingle: While the government was immediately criticised for the political caution of its response ot the sweeping reform blueprint, it has put all its political eggs in the one basket - spoiling for a fight with Australia’s most prosperous industry and risking a major scare campaign about the impact of its proposals on the national economy.
Daily Telgraph: Rudd’s reform a minor tweak
Malcolm Farr: This is dangerous policy territory in the face of the Opposition’s campaign, yet to really rev up, to accuse the Government of only being good at over-taxing and then wasting the money.
8pm: News.com.au have wrapped up today’s winners and losers here. We’ll be back first thing in the morning.
6.39pm: The PM is doing an “address to the nation” on Sunday Night on Seven. They’re putting the “polly graph” over it.
5.57pm: Love this pic from News Ltd’s Ray Strange.
5.19pm: The National Alliance for Action on Alcohol are upset the government didn’t adopt the recommended volumetric tax on grog, saying: “The government’s response to the Henry recommendation is disappointing, especially with the rationale that there is a wine glut. We have cask wine being promoted at $2 a litre - cheaper than some bottled water - but drinks industry lobbying has obviously won this round.’‘
5.14pm: Former PM Paul Keating has had his first nice thing to say about Kevin Rudd for a while: “In an uncertain world, this (superannuation guarantee boost) can only strengthen Australia and make the outlook for its citizens much more secure.”
5.10pm: Rudd’s on Ten News, repeating his new mantra: “super profits, super profits, super profits”.
5.07pm: The Institute of Chartered Accountants is not impressed. Its tax counsel Yasser El-Ansary said the government had the opportunity to address the structural impediments in the tax system that create complexity and a compliancy burden for business. ``Today the government failed to take that opportunity.”
4.40pm: The Daily Telegraph currently has a live blog with tax expert Dr Michael Dirkis.
4.19pm: For a visual demonstration of the difference between the Henry report and the Government’s response to it, check out this Dennis Shanahan video on The Australian’s website.
4.13pm: Joe Hockey says seven of the measures announced by Wayne Swan, including the boost to the super guarantee, are not contained in the Henry Report.
3.54pm: CPA Australia chief executive Alex Malley says the Opposition must commit to the changes to the superannuation guarantee (up from 9 per cent to 12 per cent by 2014/15) to avoid uncertainty.
3.48pm: According to 2UE’s Latika Bourke Abbott said: “This is not a plan to grow the economy, this is Kevin Rudd’s plan to kill the mining boom.”
3.43pm: According to Kevin Rudd: “The fear campaign will be large, and the fear campaign will be well-funded.”
3.33pm: Australian Industry Group chief executive Heather Ridout, who was on the Henry review panel, just said: “Henry is about the long term, and in an election year it’s hard to be about the long term.”
3.30pm: Swanny’s on the march through the press gallery. Here he is heading into the ABC
3.22pm: No one loves examining the tax system as much as the Oz’s George Megalogenis. He’s just filed the first of his reports, calling the Government’s response to Henry’s review “modest.”
3.18pm: David Speers on Sky says some of the things Henry recommended that the Government did not support included electorally unpopular suggestions such as re-tying the fuel excise to inflation, and so-called “sin taxes” on gambling and alcohol etc.
3.10pm: Wondering who came up with the term “super profits”. It makes the miners sound like they’re bullet proof, and is clearly designed to make them into the bad guy so the government can gouge them at will - Tors.
3.06pm: David Koch has just filed for News.com.au, saying:
The 1000 page report from Treasury secretary Ken Henry, and his committee, provides the blue print, the analysis and the recommendations to deliver on the promise. It’s just a pity the Federal Government has ignored most of those recommendations. And even those few it has adopted have been watered down.
3.02pm: If you want to follow the reaction on Twitter the hashtag is #Henry. Seven’s David Koch’s initial Twitter analysis is: “Review a dud. Govt wimps out.”
3pm: News.com.au says Australian workers will be up to $108,000 better off by the time they retire under the changes to the superannuation guarantee. You can read News.com.au’s precis here.
2.50pm: Wayne Swan has told Sky News that the controversial 40 per cent tax on above-than-normal profits for mining companies was to redress the fact that Australian people haven’t been getting their fair share of the boom. Sky also says Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s immediate reading of the package was that it was “one great big new tax.”
The long-awaited review of the Tax system by Treasury boss Ken Henry, and the Government’s response, were released at 2.30pm this afternoon.
As expected the big ticket items were:
A big slug on the Australian mining industry - referred to by the Government as a resource “superprofit” tax;
Company tax to drop from 30 per cent to 28 per cent by 2014/15;
And, changes to the superannuation guarantee, that will see it rise from the current 9 per cent, to 12 per cent by 2019.
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