The Australian Greens say a carbon tax would raise as much revenue as increasing the GST rate or broadening its base, while also reducing pollution.
Greens MP Adam Bandt has said a Parliamentary Library analysis found that raising the GST rate to 12.5% would raise a similar amount to a $28/tonne carbon tax, but would cost households three times as much.
Extending the GST to fresh food, education and healthcare would also raise a similar amount to the original carbon tax, yet households would pay four times as much, Bandt said.
Speaking on ABC 24 on Sunday, the leader of the Greens, Richard Di Natale said his party had a fully costed economic policy to raise revenue by tackling superannuation concessions for high income earners, multinational tax avoidance, negative gearing and subsidies for fossil fuels.
He said the Coalition, by contrast, was only interested in shifting the tax burden to those who earn less.
“Scott Morrison let the cat out of the bag. He said that he doesn’t want to increase the overall tax intake but what he wants to do is to cut income taxes and raise the GST, which is really just a tax shift,” Di Natale said. “It’s shifting taxes away from people on higher incomes and really slugging people on lower incomes, middle incomes.
“It’s particularly unfair at a time in Australian society where income inequality is growing, the gap between the haves and the have-nots is really growing in Australia.”
Australian Associated Press contributed to this report
