Federal Budget 2019: Labor to roll out Mediscare Round II

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten will attempt to recast the election contest into a fight over health care, using his Budget in reply speech tonight to launch a revived “Mediscare” campaign.

With Prime Minister Scott Morrison drawing the battlelines with Labor over tax cuts after the Budget on Tuesday, Mr Shorten will attempt to trump the Government’s economic narrative by pivoting the debate to health care.

Mr Shorten is expected to make a major health announcement in his speech tonight which Labor sources said would be used as “a launching pad for an election campaign to be fought on Medicare”.

Labor will also target the Government for ignoring the plight of “working mums”, saying the $158 billion tax cut package unveiled by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Tuesday was not as generous as Labor’s policy would be for those earning less than $40,000 a year.

Mr Shorten will say there are three million low-income earners who would get $100 bigger tax cut under a Labor government.

“Make no mistake, this is a Liberal Party tax on working mums,” he told The West Australian.

“Families are already dealing with cuts to child care and no funding certainty for kindergarten under the Liberals, the last thing they need is higher taxes under the Liberals.”

Already the Opposition has claimed credit for forcing the Government into an embarrassing backflip on a one-off energy payment after the Coalition yesterday decided to give the payment to those on Newstart benefits, despite them originally being excluded.

Beginning the post-Budget sales pitch for the Government as it readies itself for next month’s election, Mr Morrison said the Government’s $158 billion tax package would make sure Australian workers had “incentive for effort”.

“I want Australians to earn more in a stronger economy and I want them to keep more of what they earn in a stronger economy,” Mr Morrison said.

“It’s your economic plan for how you’re going to see an economy over the next decade that’s going to be the economy Australians want to live in.”

Labor has pledged to match the first stage of the Government’s tax cuts, but will not support the new 30 per cent tax rate that is scheduled to take effect in 2024 and cut income taxes for all workers earning between $45,000 and $200,000 a year.

Mr Frydenberg rejected suggestions that low-income earners had been the “losers” of his first Budget, saying the structural change to put in place a new tax schedule would help those earning less.

“That’s going to create a fairer, simpler tax system. And the people at the lower end of the income scale will actually get a higher proportion of their tax bill reduced as a result of the policies that we have put in place,” he told the National Press Club.