Prime minister Anthony Albanese pushes for tax cut change support

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has challenged crossbencher senators to back in changes to stage three tax cuts as he takes the sales pitch of the financial relief measures to the regions.

Mr Albanese is hopeful members of the Greens and independents will back the stage three tax cuts when parliament resumes in February.

Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie will support Labor’s new cuts in their current form with the Greens set to push for greater support for lower-income earners and a higher tax-free threshold.

A slower-than-expected recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic meant the budget could not handle the cost of the cuts to higher earners, Senator Lambie said.

“I imagine there’s a lot of people there with quite a bit of money that may have been a little bit annoyed,” she told Sky News on Monday.

“But I’d remind those people that when it comes to our values in Australia, the first thing that we do, we always pass on to those that are less fortunate.”

People earning less than $150,000 will get a greater tax cut than originally proposed while those above will still receive a tax break, although slightly less than what was originally slated.

The changes came off the back of middle Australia doing it tough, Mr Albanese said.

“We know that low and middle-income earners are really under financial pressure - they’ve been the ones who have found the inflationary pressures in the economy more difficult,” he told Melbourne’s Nova radio on Monday.

“That’s why we have a responsibility to act to assist every taxpayer, not just some.”

He expressed confidence the measures would pass.

But extra money in some pockets still could not stop him from copping a spray from thousands of tennis-goers at the Australian Open final on Sunday where he was booed as his name was called out by the announcer.

Liberal frontbencher Dan Tehan linked the reaction to the government’s stage three tax cut changes.

“When you say your word is your bond and you go back on that and you won’t even apologise for it, the Australian people are going to view that very dimly,” he told Sky News on Monday.

Mr Albanese shrugged off the public spray, calling it “a bit of tradition in Australian sport”.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was less worried about the “time honoured” tradition of booing, instead slamming the government’s integrity.

“A lot of people are angry when the PM looks them in the eye and tells them something 100 times and then ends up lying about it,” he told Tasmanian radio station LAFM.

The changes meant more Australians would be hit by bracket creep in the future but only put $15 a week into the pockets of lower-income earners, Mr Dutton said.

“I’m sure it’s welcome but it’s not going to make up for the couple of thousand dollars extra a month people are paying in their mortgages,” he said while pointing to the double-whammy of high inflation boosting the price of goods.