One in three like Labor’s budget. Taylor has other reasons to hope

Angus Taylor’s plan to restrict welfare payments to Australian citizens and link immigration rates to housing has been strongly backed by voters in a glimmer of hope for the under-pressure opposition leader.

The findings, contained in the latest Resolve Political Monitor survey conducted for this masthead, also show less than a third of people think the May budget will be good for them or the nation, while public assessment of Jim Chalmers’ performance as treasurer has fallen to its lowest level ever.

Australians are overwhelmingly pessimistic about the state of the national finances, with just 9 per cent of people expecting the economy to improve in the next month, compared with 41 per cent who expect things to get worse and 42 per cent who expect things to stay the same. Only a quarter of Australians expect economic conditions to improve in the next year, while 44 per cent of people expect things to get worse.

Similarly, just 23 per cent of people say the budget is good for them and their household, compared with 36 per cent of people who believe it is bad. Almost 30 per cent of people said the budget was good for the country, while 35 per cent said it was bad. Just over two-thirds of voters were undecided on both questions.

These are some of the worst numbers of any budget since Labor returned to power four years ago. The Resolve poll was conducted for this masthead from June 8 to 13, and surveyed 1801 voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 per cent. The findings came as a two-day senate inquiry into Labor’s proposed tax changes began in Canberra.

Monday’s inquiry heard sharp criticism of Labor’s tax changes from the Business Council of Australia, Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

BCA chief executive Bran Black said the tax package would not make Australia more competitive or productive and was a “rushed, piecemeal process that bypasses the comprehensive policy development that Australians deserve for major reform”.

“At a time when Australia needs more investment, not less, to improve our productivity, the changes proposed to capital gains tax and negative gearing will reduce investment and add significant complexity and compliance burdens to an already complex system,” Black said.

ACCI chief of policy David Alexander said the measures would “have a significant and sustained negative impact on investment and productivity”.

“There is no compelling economic reason why tax reform should require higher taxes on investment in business.”

Taylor’s pledge to restrict welfare payments – such as the pension and unemployment benefits – to Australian citizens and current permanent residents was supported by 48 per cent of voters. A quarter of people opposed the move and 27 per cent were undecided.

Linking immigration to housing completion rates was backed by 42 per cent of people, with 40 per cent undecided and 18 per cent opposed, while permanently indexing income tax cuts to avoid bracket creep was backed by 46 per cent of people and opposed by just 9 per cent of voters.

The strong support for Taylor’s plans also extended to the opposition leader’s pledge to scrap Labor’s negative gearing and capital gains tax changes, as well as his call to extend the life of coal-fired power plants and introduce new sources of power generation, including nuclear and biofuel-based generation.

There was 42 per cent support for scrapping Labor’s tax reforms, with 41 per cent undecided and 17 per cent opposed. More than half of voters said they supported extending the life of coal-fired power plants, while 48 per cent supported new power generation options, such as nuclear.

The popularity of Taylor’s budget reply policies stands in contrast to Labor’s trio of major budget measures, all of which saw a drop in support in the latest Resolve poll, as did Chalmers’ performance rating.

Just 34 per cent of people rated Chalmers’ performance as treasurer as either good or very good, down from a high of 47 per cent in May 2023. Almost two in five voters said his efforts were either poor or very poor, while 27 per cent were undecided.

Voter support for ending the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount was 31 per cent, down five points in a month, while opposition to the change rose 10 percentage points to 31 per cent. Similarly, support for restricting negative gearing to new properties fell two percentage points, from 35 per cent to 33 per cent, and opposition rose five points, from 21 per cent to 26 per cent.

Imposing a minimum 30 per cent tax rate on trusts was backed by just 29 per cent of voters, down five points, while 34 per cent opposed the change, an 11 percentage point rise in a month.

The silver lining for Labor, across all three policies, was that more than a third of voters remain undecided on these three major measures, suggesting the government could still win people over.

COSBOA chief executive Skye Cappuccio said many small business owners had had to forego wages, superannuation and financial security to grow their business, which was “not simply an investment, it is their life’s work, their retirement plan”.

Independent economist Saul Eslake backed the government’s tax reforms in principle, but argued for exemptions for start-ups and for capital gains to be averaged out over a number of years, potentially reducing the amount of tax a person paid.

“The current capital gains tax regime has not turned Australia into a nation of entrepreneurs and shareholders. Rather, the change to the CGT regime turned Australia into even more of a nation of leveraged property speculators than we already were.”

Monash University business professor Graham Samuel praised the government for showing courage and conviction and said it needed to do a better job at communicating in the face of a campaign led by vested interests.

“The private vested interests have got very, very good megaphones, and they’ll march up and down the street with their megaphones and their signs saying, ‘This is going to be a disaster, woe betide us’,” he said.

The latest Resolve poll also found that One Nation leader Pauline Hanson had rocketed past Anthony Albanese as Australians’ first choice to be prime minister, while the minor party also edged out Labor to lead both major parties on primary vote.

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