The teals want sweeping tax reform. What might it cost them?

A long-standing question about the teal independents has been whether they can truly advocate for the country’s poor from electorates so completely dominated by the rich. And what might it cost them to do so?

Six teal MPs have proposed sweeping changes to Australia’s skewed tax system. Not all these suggestions will outrage their well-off constituents — some have proposed, for example, less reliance on income tax as part of the revenue base. Here is a breakdown of each seat with the help of the 2021 census.

North Sydney

North Sydney’s median weekly household income is $2660, according to the latest census, which is the second highest of the teal seats behind Wentworth. Independent Kylea Tink is generally considered to have been the most vocally pro-business of the movement in her time in Parliament, opposing Labor’s industrial relations reforms, defending the stage three tax cuts (coming in July 2024 with bipartisan support), and insisting that someone earning $140,000 “isn’t rich”.

Her electorate’s median annual household income shakes out at $138,320. She has argued there should be a greater tax burden on companies rather than individuals, and has suggested wealth rather than income ought to be taxed higher. As she told The Monthly, “How do we move away from taxing that which is incredibly productive for our society — so, somebody working? Look instead at some of the tax benefits that are offered for not really doing much at all — so, passive income.” 

When the teals split over a proposed change to franking credits from Labor (far more modest than what the party took to the 2019 election), Tink voted to keep things as they are.

Goldstein

Zoe Daniel’s seat of Goldstein has, according to her, the most laid-back constituents when it comes to tax reforms that may affect them. In April, Daniel told the ABC she had conducted a survey that revealed a “pragmatic” view of the government’s stage three tax cuts.

“Of the responses that we have received, roughly 78% of people have said at the very least that the tax cuts need to be reconsidered,” she said. “Given that many of those people would stand to benefit from the tax cut, I think that’s significant.”

And though she’s said that the “broad feedback” in her electorate is that changes to concessions available to people with $3 million are “reasonable”, she has dismissed them as ineffective and “a class war tactic”:

There are ways to raise much bigger amounts, like taxing multinational gas companies on windfall profits, for example, which the government won’t go anywhere near. So if we’re going to talk about tax, let’s talk about it.

Along similar lines, Daniel has also called for an end to fossil fuel subsidies. Goldstein is Victoria’s richest seat, with a median weekly household income of $2377.

Warringah

Part of Zali Steggall’s initial pitch to voters of Warringah in 2019 — apart from not being Tony Abbott — was opposition to Labor’s then-policy of franking credits reform. During a debate with Abbott, she told Sky News, “I do not support that policy and I will oppose it in Parliament.”

When Parliament voted on the watered-down changes, Steggall abstained. She has been highly critical of Labor’s tax hike on super funds with more than $3 million, calling it “class warfare”.

Steggall’s big pitch for tax reform concerns multinationals and tax avoidance, telling Parliament in early August that “32% of large and medium corporate entities, including mining, energy and water companies paid no tax at all in 2020-21 … Loopholes in our tax system are allowing multinationals to extract billions of dollars from the Australian public”.

Warringah’s median weekly household income is $2870 and median monthly mortgage repayments amount to $3300. By average net wealth ($992,000) and median net wealth ($647,000), it’s the second-richest seat in the country, according to 2020 research from Roy Morgan.

Wentworth

The former seat of Malcolm Turnbull is the country’s richest, and has been for some time, with a median weekly per-house income of $2870 and a median weekly rent of $650. Wentworth’s current MP, Allegra Spender, has led the charge for a great portion of tax revenue to come from measures such as the GST, arguing the government relies too heavily on taxing incomes, harming the economy and young people.

“I believe that everything should be on the table,” Spender told the ABC’s Insiders late last month. “GST should be on the table. Capital gains tax should be on the table.” Spender was also the teal least willing to entertain taxing wealth, per Rachel Withers’ profile in The Monthly:

I can’t get her to say that anyone ought to be paying more under [her tax] review — only that the mix should be ‘fair, sustainable and drive innovation’.

Mackellar

Mackellar has a low rate of renters (at just over 21%, only 10 electorates have fewer) at a median weekly rent of $600. The median weekly household income is $2420. MP Sophie Scamps has supported the stage three tax cuts and also argued that the current mix of taxes relies too heavily on income tax.

“Our tax system currently relies too heavily on income tax, which dampens productivity – but also as our population ages, a smaller and smaller proportion of people will be responsible for keeping our country afloat in increasingly difficult circumstances,” she told the AFR. 

Curtin

Western Australia’s richest seat by some distance, Curtin takes in old money from “golden triangle” suburbs like Nedlands (median house price: $2,000,000), Dalkeith (median house price: $3,200,000) and Claremont (median house price: $1,690,000), heading to the beach-side mansions in Cottesloe and as far north as Scarborough. Median weekly household income is $2308. It was Liberal Party property until Kate Chaney won in 2022.

Chaney has argued that the government’s current changes aren’t ambitious enough and has backed an increase in GST, provided it was “accompanied by redistributive adjustments, so it doesn’t make our tax system less progressive. Everything needs to be back on the table for comprehensive and sustainable reform of our tax system.”

Kooyong

During her only debate with then-Kooyong MP Josh Frydenberg, Monique Ryan was criticised for not having a detailed plan for tax reform in the country.

“It’s very disappointing that neither of the major parties has brought any vision for tax reform for this country to this election,” she said at the time. “But it’s not my job as an independent to come up with a fully-fledged idea for tax reform for this country.”

Since her election, she has been the teal most unequivocally opposed to the stage three tax cuts. When she missed the franking credits vote (owing to a bereavement) that split the teals down the centre, The Australian took the opportunity to remind everyone that Kooyong has the highest super balance in the country, while its median household income per week is $2333.