Topics: Israel – Hezbollah conflict; Labor breaks another promise; Inflation rates;
06:45AM AEST
25 September 2024
Pete Stefanovic: Israel’s assault against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, taking out a top commander this morning. Joining us live is the Shadow Foreign Minister Simon Birmingham. Simon, good to see you as always. So, your thoughts, your concerns about this major uptick in violence this week.
Simon Birmingham: G’day, Pete. Well, Pete, none of us wish to see a dramatic escalation in violence, particularly for it to turn into a regional conflict. The first thing, though, we should always be to think of Australians and the message that’s been clear for some time that Australians should not be in Lebanon, they should not have travelled there. They should have left there and heeded the warnings and indeed the Opposition some time ago and a parliamentary committee called on the government to look at listing and designating parts of southern Lebanon as a do not travel zone for Australians. Unfortunately, the Albanese Government didn’t do that. They should have thought about that. They should have potentially acted in that space because it could have lessened the potential problem of Australians now in this conflict zone. But more broadly, what we should see is Lebanese authorities and others put pressure on Hezbollah to cease firing rockets into Israel to withdraw back from southern Lebanon in compliance with UN resolutions, and to create an environment where Israel sees that there is not an imminent threat, that Israelis can return to their homes in northern Israel, which have been subject to months and months and months of rocket attacks.
Pete Stefanovic: Yeah, we saw last night, Simon, an uptick, if you like, of protests in Sydney. Lebanese protests, this time anti-Israel protests. Do you sense this escalates on our shores once more, just as the pro-Palestinian ones did?
Simon Birmingham: Australia’s a country where people are free to state their views, but they should do so peacefully and respectfully, and they should absolutely conduct themselves in ways where there is no impugning of Jewish Australians, no targeting of Israel in a way that creates or fuels antisemitism. Such actions are reprehensible, and the failure for them to be called out and stamped out from essentially October 8th onwards has sadly led to this rise in antisemitism across our country. So, I would urge anybody who wants to express their views on this to do so in the most peaceful, respectful and considerate ways of how that expression impacts upon their fellow Australians. We don’t want to see a conflict or an undermining of social cohesion here.
Pete Stefanovic: Elsewhere this morning, Simon reports out that the Albanese Government has asked Treasury to look at options about scaling back negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions. What’s your response to that?
Simon Birmingham: Here we go again, Pete, would be the simple response. The Albanese Labor Government saying one thing on tax policy but looking at doing another. Before the last election there were going to be no changes to stage three tax cuts, no changes to superannuation changes, no tinkering with franking credits. Yet they’ve done all of those things. Now they’re running the same tricky language. We have no plans, no intentions in relation to negative gearing. Yet clearly they are lining up on negative gearing and capital gains tax. So these are quite remarkable revelations, but quite unsurprising that the Albanese Government would be once again looking at tax grabs at a time when they should instead be looking at how to curtail inflation.
Pete Stefanovic: What if it’s not a tax grab, though? What if they don’t pursue this? Rather, it’s a cap on properties, bearing in mind some politicians on both sides have multiple properties. Is that not reasonable to at least look at?
Simon Birmingham: Well, this will take the form on any of the versions that you consider under what’s been reported today of an effective tax grab that caps, limits, cuts or otherwise will have impacts that see government collect and hold on to more tax revenue. That’s been the symptom of the Albanese Government, the trend of the Albanese Government throughout because their spending is out of control and therefore they’ve got to keep looking for additional tax hits. Now, why is this troublesome and concerning policy? Because you need to have the right incentives in your tax policy to ensure that you have investment in the rental market as well. And critically, that’s where when Labor previously have toyed with this idea in government and in opposition, ultimately the experts and others have come out and indicated the problem is you will just reduce investment in housing at the very time when you need more investment in housing.
Pete Stefanovic: Okay, just a final and quick one here, Simon, before we go, if inflation falls to 2 to 3% today, is that a sign that the government’s doing its job or is this, as Michelle Bullock says, distorted data?
Simon Birmingham: Well, there are distortions and the Reserve Bank calling out the way in which the Albanese Government has tried to set up essentially temporary impacts on inflation rather than tackling core and underlying inflation, is the real problem here. When Labor was elected, Australia had some of the lowest inflation amongst developed economies. Now, after three Labor budgets, Australia has some of the highest inflation amongst developed economies. We see interest rates coming down around the rest of the world. But under Anthony Albanese they’re staying higher for longer in Australia because of, as the Reserve Bank has called out, the scale of public and government spending.
Pete Stefanovic: Simon, we’ll leave it there. Thanks for your time.
[ENDS]