Treasurer Jim Chalmers - Grilled

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    Stage 3 tax cuts: Natalie Barr confronts Treasurer over “lies” | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

    “Look, we’re putting the people before politics,’’ the Treasurer replied.“Obviously, the Coalition and its allies will play the usual kind of mindless, nasty, negative politics about this.

    ”“Is it mindless? Because it’s true, isn’t it?,’’ the Sunrise host asked.

    Speaking on the Today show, the Treasurer admitted for the first time that his officials were busily working on the plan since Christmas, even as the Prime Minister told voters the government’s position had not changed.“I mean, how long were you deceiving the public on this?,” host Sarah Abo asked.“Well, first of all, obviously don’t sign up to that characterisation of it,’’ the Treasurer said.
    But Sarah Abo then interjected that “you don’t you don’t make a decision like this overnight.”“Well, it became increasingly clear to us over Christmas, over summer, uh, that we could deliver these tax cuts in a better way,’’ Dr Chalmers replied.“

    The Prime Minister has said publicly that he tasked the Treasury and the finance departments, myself and Katy Gallagher, uh, to come up with other ways to provide additional cost of living relief for people doing it tough.“We obviously have been thinking over the summer period about how we do that.“We received the Treasury advice and we changed the government’s position on Tuesday of this week when the cabinet agreed to the new tax cuts.”

    The Today show host noted that meant that Treasury was working on this and these changes “while you were still denying it publicly.”“Well, what we said publicly was that the government hadn’t changed its position,’’ the Treasurer said.“The government changed its position on Tuesday, but it did become increasingly clear to us over the course of Christmas.”

    “Why is it negative to pick up on broken promises, though? How do we know going into the next election what you promise, you will deliver on?,’’ host Lisa Millar asked.“Because what this demonstrates is that we have a Prime Minister who is prepared to take the difficult decisions in the interests of the people, even when the politics are hard,’’ the Treasurer said.
    “And the reason I’m pointing to the nasty, negative and mindless politics being played by our opponents is because they don’t want your viewers to focus on the fact that everybody is still getting a tax cut. More people are getting a tax cut. More people are getting a bigger tax cut.

    “We’re being upfront with people.” <- BWHAHAHA, Contridictions galoure. You cant trust the Treasurer nor the PM.


 
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