Coalition stumbles out of the blocks on Albanese’s sneaky tax change

Yes, it’s early days in the tax cut debate that’s going to run all the way to the next election. So early we don’t even have a package yet. But the early stages will be crucial to shaping perceptions: remember Julia Gillard’s carbon price — once she let Tony Abbott falsely define it as a tax at the outset, that immensely damaging perception could never be shifted.

One opposition figure correctly noted yesterday that Labor had been very sneaky in how it has gone about changing the package — by selectively briefing out the broad nature of the changes, with very few hard numbers beyond what the government wants people to know about — that the majority of income earners will get a bigger tax cut. So while much of the focus of the last 36 hours has been on the broken promise — that was inevitable — the message that most workers will be better off has been delivered by the media — even by critics of the change.

From that point of view, it’s mission accomplished so far for the government. They haven’t yet had to deal with detailed questions, because they haven’t provided any detail. That comes later today. “Sneaky” is absolutely right, but that’s politics.

Where the government would be especially happy is that the media has already not just bought what it’s been selling on the package, but gone further and started hammering the opposition about whether it would reverse the bigger tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners in order to restore bigger tax cuts for high-income earners.

That’s going to be a key asset for the government going forward because the opposition has few good options. It will be politically unacceptable to commit to simply restoring the original stage three package, shifting tens of billions in tax cuts to people earning over $150,000 a year. It will either have to accept the new package and commit to keeping it, or do that and promise high-income earners it will give them a bonus tax cut if they get elected.

Most of those people already vote Liberal, so the benefit of a tax cut only for the “rich” will be trivial.

The official holding line from the opposition is that they’ll wait and see what’s in the actual package. That’s the most sensible thing at this point. It’s the position that shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, released from witness protection, stated in a couple of interviews yesterday. But, in a demonstration of how not sticking rigidly to a bland line can be damaging, deputy leader Sussan Ley told Sky News when asked if the Coalition would roll back the changes “this is our position. This is absolutely our position”. For good measure, when asked again if the Coalition would restore the original package, Ley replied “we’ve made it very clear that this is our policy. The policy is the legislated position that stands today.”

That allowed Labor to immediately claim the opposition had committed to rolling back bigger tax cuts in favour of rewarding the rich. Ley had to scramble this morning to say there was no rollback in the offing.

That’s the kind of brutal politics the Coalition and News Corp have always played with Labor — anything other than the fiercest denial can be portrayed as de facto endorsement — and now Labor is returning the favour with delight to its opponents.

The Coalition naturally, rightly, wants to keep the focus on the broken promise. It’s their best angle. In fact, they could do worse than adopting Phil Coorey’s wholly correct line that Labor’s idea of integrity comes with a means test. But Labor has already got the media asking about whether the Coalition will take from the low and middle-income earners and give to the high-income earners.

Perhaps the Coalition has been caught flat-footed. It has constantly sought to question whether Labor was really committed to stage three, knowing that it would be highly risky for Labor to break its promise. But did it wargame its own response? Did it think through what kind of questions it would face? Did it think through how it would have launched the about-face if it were in government, and how that could be countered? It seems not.

Peter Dutton, who’s been keeping a low profile since he charged Woolworths with treason for not selling made-in-China flag bikinis, should know that just because he’s been handed a gift, it won’t do the work for him.