A taxonomy of tax cut takes: How the stage three changes played across Australian newspapers

What a couple of days it’s been for Australia’s media. Having had to eke out political content during the January lull largely from a dreary, reheated culture war over January 26, suddenly the floodgates have opened. A former PM has resigned from Parliament, we have a new ABC head, Margot Robbie got snubbed for an Oscar and, best of all, we have an election promise inarguably broken, with Labor announcing it will change the final stage of the previous government’s tax cuts — cuts it had repeatedly and unequivocally promised to implement unchanged during the election campaign.

Let’s see how this played in the nation’s papers.

The Nine papers had it both ways (typical, am I right?), calling the move a “flip” in The Sydney Morning Herald and quoting shadow treasurer Angus Taylor’s description of the move as a “betrayal” in The Age, but in both cases emphasising the wider application of the new cuts.

The commentary takes a similar view — a huge political risk, but potentially better policy: “The calculus is simple — while his political opponents will hammer Albanese, the prime minister is betting that 10.5 million working Australians will overlook that broken promise because of the extra cash in their pockets from July 1,” writes senior economics correspondent Shane Wright. The editorial, headed “Breaking a promise is one thing, a real plan for tax reform is another” argues:

Political promises matter. Voters have every right to expect the informal contracts they enter into with political parties at elections to be honoured. This is a cornerstone of our democratic system.

But in The Age’s view, there was a reasonable case to break the promise to deliver the third tranche of tax cuts, due to begin on July 1.

The SMH reverses the formulation, and is thus more critical: “While some of the reforms signed off by cabinet and caucus may well make sense, that does not absolve Albanese from breaking an election promise”.

What of Albanese’s great friends at The Australian?

“PM’s breach of faith on tax cuts could prove to be politically fatal” is Dennis Shanahan’s sombre view:

Albanese’s move is not only a sneaky breach of faith but also cynical repudiation of the fundamental reform intention of the tax changes, which were designed to eliminate the anti-aspirational and productivity-dulling effect of bracket creep that pushed more and more taxpayers into higher tax brackets and provided lazy money for governments.

The editorial calls it a “bad day for aspiration” and likens the situation to Julia Gillard’s “lie” about there being “no carbon tax” under her government. Interestingly, the editorial makes no mention of the cost broken promises exacted on Tony Abbott. Indeed, looking back on the immediate coverage of Abbott’s first budget, we’re struck by the restraint in assessing a document that just over a year later was widely considered to be the beginning of the end for Abbott, with its ludicrous harshness and “astonishing array of broken election promises“. But according to the Oz at the time, its main problem was it didn’t go far enough.

The tabloids, as is to be expected, had a field day. The Herald Sun took up the “attack on aspiration” line too, and full marks for its picture of Albanese using air quotes as though indicating his election promises were more figurative or allegorical than literal.

The West Australian did an effective bit of visual listicle-ing, pasting Albanese’s previous assurances on the tax cuts around his head like mocking Post-its.

And what of The Daily Telegraph, who once upon a time thought all Albo was #hotalbo? The tabloid offered the strongest reaction of all mastheads, with a pun so brutal you feel they had to have been sitting on it for a while.