A survey conducted by the Australian National University (Australian Candidate Study 2001) of the attitudes of political candidates has given a revealing insight into the Labor Party’s real view on tax.
The survey asked candidates before the last election “If the government had a choice between reducing taxes or spending more on social services, which do you think it should do?”
A total of 65 percent of Coalition candidates declared that they would prefer lower taxes.
Only 3 percent of Labor candidates declared that they would prefer lower taxes. 85 percent of Labor candidates said that they favoured higher spending and 11% were non-committal.
On the basis of this 3 percent return, this means that there are precisely 2 of the 64 Labor Members of the House of Representatives prepared to support lower taxes in a confidential survey.