NEIL BREEN:
My special guest, the federal Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, is on the line. Good morning Treasurer.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Good morning, Neil.
NEIL BREEN:
Are you there? Have you recovered from COVID?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
I think I'm on the mend. Like so many Australians, you know I got the dreaded virus. It was a couple of rough nights, the old cold sweats and headaches and sore throat, but it's definitely subsided most of the way. But fortunately, I didn't end up in hospital. And my thoughts go out to all those people who are in hospital, either in ICU or ventilators, and particularly those health workers who do an amazing job on our behalf.
NEIL BREEN:
Okay, just a bit of a scratchy line there, a bit like your voice was last week. Okay. Tax cuts. The thing I never understand about tax cuts is how can I touch it and feel it? Say I'm on $100,000. How am I going to benefit from tax cuts?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
You're going to get substantial relief. Take someone nurse or teacher who's on $60,000 a year. They'll pay $2,160 less in tax this year compared to when Labor was last in office. That's a substantial amount of money, and that's a lot in anyone's language. And what we've done is put in place real significant structural reform Neil. We're getting rid of the whole tax bracket, $0.37 in the dollar tax bracket. 95 per cent of taxpayers will pay no more than $0.30 in the dollar, which means you work hard, you get to keep more of what you earn, and that's consistent with our political philosophy.
NEIL BREEN:
Okay. The tax bracket is going to move. So there's no $0.37. So you go the 30 cent bracket, then that goes all the way up to the 45 or 47 cent bracket?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
45. That's right. And then obviously you've got Medicare levy on top of that. But what our changes do is they ensure simpler, fairer tax system. It's still progressive. The more you earn, the more taxes you pay, which, as you would understand, is a fair system as well. But what we want is to enable more people to keep more of what earn. That’s a real fault line, a battleline between the two political parties on tax, Labor proposing higher taxes on superannuation and housing and reasons and obviously, the Australian people rejected that. And you can't trust Labor again on tax.
NEIL BREEN:
I think we got the gist of it there. Treasurer I'm going to have to leave it because the line is so bad, Treasurer, you were cutting in and out, but we got the gist of there. Thanks for joining us this morning.