A Coalition frontbencher has refused to say if Opposition Leader Angus Taylor approved a key speech where he freelanced on tax and immigration policy.
Andrew Bragg, the Opposition’s shadow minister for housing, on Thursday declined to confirm if his boss approved of his National Press Club speech, where he advocated policies that had not yet been approved by his shadow cabinet colleagues.
“Well, I’m not going into personal interactions with colleagues. I don’t think you would expect me to,” he told ABC Radio National.
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Senator Bragg, a leading moderate within the Liberal Party, is now arguing he was simply outlining ideas rather than contradicting his Coalition frontbench colleagues, after a day earlier saying the Liberal Party lacked political courage.
“So that, in terms of the broader issues that were flagged, I mean, these are not detailed policy prescriptions, but I thought it was important, as a token of honesty, to be clear about what the direction of travel should be,” he said.
On Wednesday, Senator Bragg called for the top marginal tax rate to be cut from 45 per cent to at least 39 per cent and suggested annual net overseas migration needed to be cut to 180,000, down from 301,000 last year.
“The top tax rates for individuals are too high and should have a ‘3’ in front of them, just as the taxes on small businesses are too high,” he told the National Press Club in Canberra.
“Assuming Labor sticks to this Budget profile, it means the specific shortfall relating to housing created under Labor can be closed over the Budget forward estimates period by averaging a NOM of under 180,000.
“The Liberal Party has contributed to our malaise by not being prepared to develop enough alternative policy and wear political risk.”
Senator Bragg on Wednesday regretted failing to speak out more on former Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s COVID measures which saw Australians banned from travelling overseas for a holiday or to see relatives.
“As someone who was a backbencher in the Morrison Government, I wish I’d done more to stop the madness,” he said.
Labor Housing Minister Clare O’Neil described him as unhinged after he used the word “communist” to describe the Federal Government.
“A crazed, almost manic, ideological fever dream. It was genuinely unhinged,” she said.
Mr Taylor, a conservative within the Liberal Party, has promised that under a Coalition government led by him, existing marginal income tax brackets would be indexed for inflation but the Liberal and National parties are yet to advocate reducing the top marginal rate that kicks in at $190,000.
The Liberal leader has also vowed that immigration should be reduced but has yet to nominate a figure after One Nation leader Pauline Hanson last year called for annual net overseas migration to be slashed to 130,000.
While that figure is significantly below the record-high 548,800 level of the year to September 2023, it’s still higher than the 79,000 net overseas migration average of the 1990s.
Senator Bragg’s 180,000 figure would still be higher than the 172,000 average of the 2000s that saw annual numbers double by the end of the decade as the mining boom caused a skills shortage.
