Before the 46th Parliament commenced on 2 July 2019 the leader of the opposition Anthony Albanese was keen to get on the front foot and promote an alternative tax cut plan.

Here are photos from his doorstop interview in the Mural Hall at Parliament House on Monday 1 July.

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Below is some of the transcript from the doorstop.

Transcript of Doorstop – Parliament House – Monday, 1 July 2019

SUBJECTS: Tax cuts; Christopher Pyne; John Setka.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning, well welcome back to Parliament. Today of course is July 1. The day that Scott Morrison said tax cuts would already be in place – the Stage One that he spoke about during the election campaign. So today marks the day of Scott Morrison’s first broken promise.

It marks something else as well. It’s a day when 700,000 workers will lose their penalty rates. Penalty rates that they rely upon to put food on the table, to put petrol in their car, to pay the school fees for their kids. The fact is, that at a time where wages are not keeping up with the costs of living for so many Australian families, this is a blow to them. But it’s also a blow to the national economy because the Reserve Bank have indicated that the economy is softening. They recently of course cut interest rates and tomorrow they’ll meet again. It’ll be interesting to see whether they cut interest rates again.

What this economy needs is stimulus. They need Stage One of the tax cuts but they also need Stage Two brought forward. If a tax cut is good in 2022, why isn’t it good in 2019? The fact is that only Labor is arguing that every Australian worker should get a tax cut this term of parliament. The Government’s proposals are off in the never never and if the Government suggests that it’s going to hold up tax cuts today over theoretical tax cuts in 2025, then that is entirely economically irresponsible. It’ll  be on the Government’s head frankly because the Government was elected to govern not just to play politics. And all we’re seeing from this Government at the moment is playing politics.

Happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: You said you wanted to [inaudible] a debate, what do you mean by that?

ALBANESE: Well what that means is that tomorrow is the first day of Parliament. So without the opposition agreeing, there’s no way that you could have any debate on legislation and of course this, the 46th Parliament will be in, certainly in my memory, the first time that you’ve had some debate on the parliament. We’ll give leave for the Government to introduce its legislation and so that we can have that debate tomorrow night so that the Senate can consider these matters on Thursday. Of course, on Wednesday we’ll be devoted to the commemoration for Bob Hawke as is appropriate and as has occurred in the past, Parliament will adjourn. That will be the only item of business before the Parliament this Wednesday.

Visit https://anthonyalbanese.com.au/transcript-of-doorstop-parliament-house-monday-1-july-2019 for the full transcript.