The Huffington Post Australia says the PM hopes his plan to cut middle income tax gives him the political reboot which he desperately needs. But it casts doubt on its effectiveness.
Malcolm Turnbull says it is his "determination" to pass tax cuts for middle income earners next year after the government has legalised same-sex marriage and set up a disclosure scheme for politicians' citizenship status.
The Huffington Post Australia says that the middle income tax cut plan, with virtually no detail, was dropped at the end of a day where senior members of the Government including Turnbull copped a severe backlash over extraordinary plans to delay Parliament until December 4 to suit its agenda.
The Coalition says it wants more time to guarantee the passage of the same-sex marriage bill and the citizenship register.
But the Labor opposition, Greens and crossbench have all accused the government of trying to buy time and avoid a vote on an investigative commission into the banks, while former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce fights a by-election in New England.
Labor leader Bill Shorten said the promised tax cuts were a cheap attempt to shore up the prime minister's leadership and standing in opinion polls.
"It's like free beer tomorrow, isn't it?" he told Channel Seven.
The Huffington Post Australia quotes comments from Deloitte Access Economics' Chris Richardson as follows:
"The economy is going fine. It really is. It does not need help, if you like, from tax cuts," Richardson explained. "The budget is not going fine and tax cuts would come at its expense.
"Having said that, it is absolutely middle income earners in the firing line for tax increases in the next handful of years."
These people, hardest hit, are the people the Government desperately needs.
"It is almost, from the viewpoint of politicians, the worst of all worlds: the biggest, relative increases in tax over the next handful of years will be going to middle income earners who are, of course, likely to be swinging voters," he said.
"That is what the Government is responding to."
The Huffington Post Australia argues that may be a reason Mr Turnbull has promised a "fistful of dollars", but whether he can bank on keeping those "wolves from the door" is another matter entirely.
