Malcolm Turnbull still doesn’t get fairness when it comes to his cuts to family payments. Today in Question Time the Prime Minister was asked by the Member for Chifley:
“Around 19,000 families in my electorate of Chifley in Western Sydney will lose up to $4,700 a year because of this Prime Minister’s unfair cuts to family payments –
That’s before an increased GST raises the price of everything.
But in the Prime Minister’s electorate of Wentworth just 3,000 families will be affected.
Why are families in my electorate bearing such a heavy burden for this Prime Minister’s unfair cuts and increased taxes?”
ED HUSIC, HOUSE OF REPS, 23 NOVEMBER 2015
Mr Turnbull answered by falsely claiming that:
“The Government plans to reform and restructure the family tax benefit, to give families more money each fortnight.”
MALCOLM TURNBULL, HOUSE OF REPS, 23 NOVEMBER 2015
But a single parent family with two children could be as much as $4,700 a year worse off because of Mr Turnbull’s unfair cuts to family payments.
Families on Family Tax Benefit Part A will lose a supplement of $726 a year per child, and families on Family Tax Benefit Part B will lose a supplement of $354 a year per family.
About half a million of these families are earning less than $50,000 a year.
And these cuts are all before the Liberals increase the GST, which will drive up the cost of everything at the supermarket.
Mr Turnbull then went on to describe his Government’s cuts to family payments as a:
“A very progressive measure…”
MALCOLM TURNBULL, HOUSE OF REPS, 23 NOVEMBER 2015
But there’s nothing progressive or fair about cutting $4,700 a year from low and middle income families.
Mr Turnbull also failed to explain why families in Western Sydney will be hardest hit by his cuts to family payments, but families in his own blue ribbon Liberal electorate of Wentworth will hardly be affected.
This just shows that Mr Turnbull may talk a lot about fairness but he has no idea what it means.
Mr Turnbull has no idea how much families will be hurt by his cuts to family payments.