Category Archives: Tax

Australia news live: Wong ‘deeply concerned’ about escalation in Middle East; RBA interest rate decision due today

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Reserve bank’s two-day August meeting likely to leave key interest rate unchanged for a sixth straight gathering. Follow the day’s news live

Australia will join the US Global Entry program in 2025, creating an easier pathway for the hundreds of thousands of Australians who visit the country each year.

Eligible Australians who sign up for the program would benefit from streamlined and expedited immigration and customs clearance channels on arrival into the US, a statement from the foreign minister, Penny Wong, says.

Joining the Global Entry program is a mark of the closeness and the strength of the relationship between our two countries.

The foundation of the friendship between Australia and United States is the friendship between our people. This program will deepen these links and make it easier to foster greater commercial ties.

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Wealth taxes could raise £10bn to help plug Tory budget hole, say economists

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Reforms to inheritance and capital gains taxes could reduce £20bn shortfall and combat UK’s widening wealth gap

Rachel Reeves could quickly find around £10bn a year to plug half of the fiscal hole left by the Conservatives if she were to raise taxes on soaring levels of unearned wealth, according to leading economists.

New research by the independent Resolution Foundation published today finds that Britain is a country of “booming wealth” but “busted wealth taxes”, leaving ample potential for the chancellor of the exchequer to raise desperately needed funds by raising taxes on the richest.

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Rachel Reeves expected to reveal £20bn shortfall in public finances

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Chancellor may raise some taxes in the autumn due to what Labour describes as its ‘shocking inheritance’ from Tories

Rachel Reeves is expected to reveal a £20bn hole in government spending for essential public services on Monday, paving the way for potential tax rises in the autumn budget.

Labour sources said the blame lay with the Tory government, describing it as a “shocking inheritance” and accusing the former chancellor of “presiding over a black hole and still campaigning for tax cuts”.

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Australia’s $50,000 arts degree is here – putting university fees on par with the UK and US

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The Hecs/Help scheme was not designed so people making a regular wage remained in debt until death, expert says

There was a time when would-be poets, historians and writers could expect to pay off an arts degree at an Australian university within the decade, if they were able to find stable employment. Fast forward to now and they may die with their debt.

Arts degrees in Australia are poised to cost more than $50,000 for the first time, with experts warning some students will never be able to pay off their debts.

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Greens and academics criticise appointment of antisemitism envoy – as it happened

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Flights have been cancelled or delayed out of Brisbane airport this morning as thick smoke blankets the city.

According to the Brisbane airport website, nine domestic flights and two international flights have been cancelled. On social media, the airport wrote that widespread fog across Brisbane was “slowing movements on ground and limiting visibility.”

Flights are still departing but there are delays due to the reduced visibility.

Participants will be able to check accessible scorecards that will show what services DES providers offer and how they rate for quality and effectiveness, helping them make an informed choice when selecting their provider.

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Australia news live: Albanese announces special envoy to combat antisemitism, says Jewish students ‘worried’ to wear school uniform

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Meanwhile, attorney general to outline updated legislation to crackdown on money laundering. Follow the day’s news live

The minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, said that when it comes to the Alice Springs curfew, politics needs to be left out of it.

Speaking with ABC RN, Burney said:

This issues in Alice Springs have been a long time in the making … [The issues] will only be addressed over a long-term funding commitment, which we’ve made from the federal government.

We certainly are concerned that this is going to continue to increase and potentially overwhelm the hospital systems.

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Dutton says ‘Australia can learn’ from new British PM’s nuclear stance – as it happened

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‘Pretty clear’ Fatima Payman has been planning to join crossbench for a ‘long period’, minister says

The finance minister and manager of the government in the Senate, Katy Gallagher, is speaking with ABC RN after Fatima Payman’s resignation yesterday.

It’s difficult to go into, you know, when the decision was made – only Senator Payman knows that – but we do know, now that it’s been done, it’s a matter of fact that there had been obviously discussions about her role as an independent senator and for some time.

I think the way these decisions have been made by Senator Payman make it pretty clear that she has been thinking about this for a long period of time, and it was executed this week …

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Senator says PM’s office planted seed about crossing floor – as it happened

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Josh Burns says Labor motion to recognise Palestine as part of the peace process is ‘the bare minimum’

Josh Burns finished with:

This motion before the House is the bare minimum. It says that we support the recognition of a Palestinian state as part of a peace process. That peace process is something that I hold onto and that I have held onto my entire life.

That peace process says that we are all people, above all, and that there has to be a way through this. There has to be a way through this conflict. I wish that we could pull a lever here in Australia and it would all end today, but we have seen time and time again that that is not the case.

There are so many intractable parts of this conflict. I have a degree in this conflict, and I still don’t quite know how to fix it.

I know that there are players who are desperate to end the peace process and to try and disturb any efforts towards peace. I know that trees take years and years and years to grow and can be cut down in a second, and that is what the Middle East has demonstrated over and over again.

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Older Australians pressured into paying unfair robotax debts will not be compensated, government says

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Finance minister Katy Gallagher says people who felt intimidated into paying back ATO debts so old they are impossible to verify will not get their money back

Older Australians who felt pressured into paying decades-old debts as part of the troubled “robotax” campaign have hit out at a government decision to deny refunds after describing the tax grab as coercive.

The federal government has disclosed it intends to amend laws that will allow the Australian Taxation Office to keep debts put on hold before 2017 on ice indefinitely, rather than extract them from future tax refunds, as was planned.

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Australia politics live: Labor caucus endorses Payman suspension; Watt says no plan to ban live cattle exports

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PM calls for ‘a long-term solution in a peace process’ between Israel and Palestine. Follow today’s news headlines live

Shorten says he thinks Labor party is trying to give Senator Payman ‘space and time’

Bill Shorten continues:

I see why people feel so strongly. They can feel so strongly about the hostage is not being returned, or the deaths in Gaza. People could feel also very strongly about the near million deaths in Sudan.

I can get these very incredibly strong issues. And if you come from particular communities, they’re even more intense, although that doesn’t need to be the prerequisite.

Before I deny something, what’s your source?

No, I don’t believe that.

… Because I wasn’t there and I don’t believe it. I actually think the prime minister, Senator Wong and the leadership are handling a complicated issue pretty well.

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Australia politics live: Butler tells convenience stores and corner shops ‘you need to stop’ selling vapes as new laws begin

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Aly believes amended motion on recognition of Palestine was stronger than Greens motion

The Greens motion that Fatima Payman voted for, called for recognition of Palestinian statehood. Labor amended the motion to say that recognition of Palestinian statehood was part of a peace process that ended in a two-state solution.

I think actually our motion strengthened it because the I think just saying the night to recognise a Palestinian state without any context is in some ways tokenistic. I don’t want this to be tokenistic. I want this to be a very clear message to the Palestinian people that Australia supports their aspirations for statehood.

And as I say, I was hoping that that would have a resolution, would have got passed. And unfortunately, it didn’t.

There’s never one opinion here and you know, different people in the Muslim communities will have different views.

And I’ve been in contact with quite a few who have a very different view, who argue one of those things, or they’re they’re saying that, you know, the way to make change may not necessarily be the way that Fatima has chosen.

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Council tax: final-year students warned they could get surprise bills

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Students are exempt during their course but as soon as they finish their final year they are liable to pay

Final-year university students have been urged to check that they do not owe council tax for the last few weeks of their rented accommodation.

While students are exempt from the tax during the course, they are liable to pay as soon as they finish their final year.

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Fatima Payman admits she ‘upset a few colleagues’ by crossing the floor – as it happened

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Housing minister Julie Collins is speaking to the ABC RN about Labor’s build-to-rent bill which was knocked back in the Senate yesterday, with the Greens and the Coalition combining to delay it:

What we want to do is get this done. We’ve already been consulting, we announced it in the previous budget. Any delays will actually stop the pipeline of construction and the certainty for the sector.

What we want to do is get more affordable homes and more homes of every type on the ground as quickly as we can.

We’re saying they have to have a minimum of 10% to be eligible for the tax concessions that we’re talking about for each development.

That’s what our consultations and our discussions with the sector have done and, as I said, this is not the only thing we’re doing for affordable homes … My point here is that they continually delay and block housing up every time by coming together and having this unholy alliance between the Liberals and the Greens in the Senate, because they’re more interested in votes than they are about people.

We’re not open to negotiation and we want to get this done.

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Shorten says NDIS ‘too important for political games’ after bill blocked – as it happened

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Wong rejects Birmingham’s criticism, says US alliance ‘deep and strong’

Asked about her Liberal counterpart Simon Birmingham’s criticism of Anthony Albanese’s phone call with Julian Assange and his claims that the deal to release Assange has “damaged” the US-Australian alliance, Penny Wong says:

That’s not not correct and disappointing that Simon would go to the alliance. He would know that our relationship with the United States is deep and strong.

And that is why we were able to advocate in the way we did. And ultimately, the pathway to resolving this, … had to be through the resolution of the legal process.

Dr Yang remains a priority for our government. We continue to raise his case with the Chinese authorities at all appropriate levels and we will continue to do so. It was obviously raised, as you know, when Premier Li was here.

What I would say is today I am very pleased to see Mr Assange reunited with his family in Australia.

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Families set to pocket more than $60 a week from stage-three tax cuts

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Treasury analysis shows ‘mums and dads’ will be among the biggest beneficiaries when 1 July cuts kick in, Jim Chalmers says

Australian families are set to pocket more than $60 a week when the government’s tax cuts kick in from July, according to new analysis from Treasury.

The federal budget’s cost-of-living measures will come into effect on 1 July, including the tax cuts and energy relief for all households and 1m small businesses.

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Shadow energy minister says system in ‘dire trouble’ – as it happened

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Australia needs more gas supply on east coast, Albanese says

Anthony Albanese is speaking to the ABC from Devonport.

We’ll work those issues through with Aemo.

We need more gas supply. We announced our future gas strategy a short while ago because we understand that we need more supply. Gas has an important role to play in manufacturing in particular. But also in providing firming capacity for the renewables rollout.

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Australia news live: Dutton announces Coalition’s nuclear policy and proposed sites, but no costs

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Sites named at Collie, Mt Piper, Callide, Tarong, Liddell, Northern energy in South Australia and Loy Yang. Follow the day’s news live

Sussan Ley says Coalition nuclear policy will be a ‘sensible proposition’

I just wanted to return to Sussan Ley’s appearance on Sky News this morning, where she was asked how a potential future Coalition nuclear policy would circumvent nuclear bans:

We’ll work through all that. We have a sensible proposition to put to the Australian people and I know that when we talk about nuclear people are starting to tune in, understanding that if 19 of the 20 biggest economies in the world are using nuclear, if it makes sense for cleaner baseload power, because it’s zero emissions, if it helps us get to 2050 net zero, if it does all of the things that we want it to do in terms of emissions, and in terms of securing affordable cheaper power for Australians … why would people not consider it? And I believe they will.

Now, the government says it’s renewables only. We can see that that’s actually not going to happen. The government talks about hydrogen, it’s not at scale. It’s not even something they can demonstrate works in that short timeframe and they talk about batteries that aren’t going to provide the storage for their renewables.

So, they are in a complete mess over this, and they need to be put on the sticky paper and asked what they are going to do for families, households and manufacturing businesses.

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RBA governor says inflation still above target; Matt Kean to retire from politics – as it happened

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Liberals criticise treatment of journalist by Chinese officials at press conference

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham has condemned the treatment of journalist Cheng Lei at federal parliament yesterday.

This was an entirely counterproductive and inappropriate act by Chinese officials that should have been called out by our prime minister and government officials.

It is a reminder that we have two very different systems, the Chinese system and the Australian system, different systems of government, of course as a democracy, different respect when it comes to media, to freedom of speech, but this visit is taking place in Australia.

It is concerning, I think a lot of this comes from so many Australians genuinely doing a tough at the moment, having to make really tough decisions, from telling their kids that they can no longer play basketball or be part of the scouts group because they can’t afford the … 500 bucks a year that costs, to other Australians who are deciding between going to see the GP or fulfilling a script and putting food on the table.

People are doing it tough and so when they hear politicians talk about these targets in the future … I think Peter Dutton use this to whip up fear.

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Keir Starmer promises no capital gains tax on sales of homes

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Labour leader rejects ‘desperate’ claim from Tory party that he has secret property tax plans

Keir Starmer has ruled out imposing capital gains tax on the sale of people’s homes and said it was “desperate” tactics from the Tories to suggest that he would.

The Labour leader said he could “absolutely” guarantee that would not happen.

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Police investigate after pro-Palestinian slogans graffitied on Canberra war memorial – as it happened

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The education minister, Jason Clare, has said stricter regulations on social media for teenagers had bipartisan support.

Speaking to Channel 7’s Sunrise, Clare called social media a “cesspit”, and added that Labor’s age verification trial would be the first step to protecting young people.

I think we all agree that social media’s a cesspit. We all agree we don’t want our kids on it. It’s about how do you do it?

This should be something where the Labor party and the Liberal party can work together.

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