‘Unfunded’: Labor pooh-poohs Coalition’s fuel relief plan

The Albanese government has dismissed the Coalition’s pitch to Australians dreading the bowser as adding to the “hundreds of billions of dollars in unfunded promises”.

It would automatically halve the fuel excise when the two-week average closing price of Brent crude sat above $US100 a barrel.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said on Monday it was a bad idea and called it “an unfunded, uncosted promise from (Angus) Taylor”.

“This is not something that we have been considering,” she told ABC’s Radio National.

“Obviously, we’ve helped when the war started with some changes to the fuel excise, but we’ve shifted to providing more permanent cost-of-living arrangements, including through the tax system, to make sure that that ongoing cost-of-living help is there permanently, not just in these one-off arrangements, which, when we’ve got higher inflation, could be difficult in the economy.”

But speaking on the same program after Senator Gallagher, opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan insisted the plan was “a good, sensible, practical measure which is helping Australians in a cost-of-living crisis”.

“And what I would say to Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party is get out amongst the people and see what’s happening in your electorates because people are hurting because of cost of living,” he said.

Mr Tehan said the safeguard would be “completely offset” and not inflict “inflationary pressures”.

“We have the discipline to be able to do the policy work to make sure we can offset policies like this so it won’t be inflationary and it will provide much-needed relief to people and they need it now,” he said.

He added that it would be fully funded by the Coalition’s proposal to slash the tobacco excise by 80 per cent in a bid to undermine black market sales, which the Parliamentary Budget Office estimated would raise $8bn.

“So once again, more sensible policy measures put in place, costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office, which showed an $8bn saved to the budget,” Mr Tehan said.

Originally published as ‘Unfunded’: Labor pooh-poohs Coalition’s fuel relief plan