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Nation First calls for a tax revolution and a DOGE-style blitz on government waste in Australia.

If you’re an Australian, you’ve probably heard the spin relating to the Federal Budget that was brought down on Tuesday night. The Albanese Labor government says they’re giving “tax cuts to every Australian.” What they’re not telling you is this: you won’t see a cent until July 2026, and when it does finally land, it’ll be worth just 70 cents a day.

Seventy. Cents.

That’s their idea of cost-of-living relief.

While your bills are exploding, your groceries are through the roof, and your electricity is up by almost a third — Labor’s dangling loose change in front of you like you’re supposed to cheer. Don’t fall for it.

• Labor’s tax cuts won’t arrive until July 2026 and will only deliver 70 cents a day to Australians.
• Since Labor took office, the cost of essentials like food, housing, electricity, and gas has skyrocketed.
• The tax system takes too much from working Australians through layers of taxes, fees, and charges.
• Real reform means raising the tax-free threshold to $26,000 and capping how much tax any individual can pay.
• Peter Dutton’s promise to halve the fuel excise is a strong start, but full, permanent cuts and spending audits are needed to ease the burden.

Since Labor came to power, inflation has chewed up everything that matters. Health is up 10 percent. Food is up 13 percent. Housing is up 14 percent. Education is up 17 percent. Rents have jumped 18 percent. Insurance and financial services are up 19 percent. Electricity is up 32 percent without rebates, and gas is up a staggering 34 percent.

So what exactly is 70 cents a day a year from now going to fix?

This isn’t reform. It’s not relief. It’s a stunt — one cooked up just weeks before an election is to be called to make it look like Labor’s doing something for the Aussie battler. Meanwhile, if you’re a part-time worker earning under $18,200 a year, you get nothing. And if you’re a successful Aussie earning half a million? You get the same 70 cents a day. No logic. No fairness. No plan.

Scrap Income Tax

Now, I’ve said this before — and I’ll say it again. In 2010, after being elected to the Australian House of Representatives, I had the joy of using my very first speech to the Parliament to lay out exactly what I thought of Australia’s tax system:

… whether it be the mine worker, the cane grower, the small business owner or the mother in the working family, [the government] has one hand picking their pockets while the other is boxing them in with regulation and red tape. Right now, [everyday Australians] could be subject to ambulance tax, land tax, stamp duties, local government rates, water rates, sewerage charges, waste levies, car registration fees, boat registration fees, cigarette excise, alcohol excise, fuel excise, capital gains tax, fringe benefits tax, superannuation tax, GST and, last but not least, personal income tax. To me, the most hated of these taxes is income tax and there are only a few things more detestable than someone mooching directly off your income, even if it is the state and it is supposedly for the common good. I believe income tax should go.

I stand by every word. That’s the dream. Scrap income tax completely. Give power back to the people and strip it from the state. But let’s be honest — no political party in this country has the guts to do that. Not yet. Maybe not in my lifetime.

So, if they can’t scrap it, they should at least cut it for everyone. Not a little nibble around the edges, not a “wait 15 months for 70 cents” trick, but a real plan.

Raise the tax-free threshold to $26,000. That’s the poverty line. No Australian living below it should be handing over a single dollar to Canberra.

Cap the total dollar amount any Australian can be taxed. If you’re contributing more to the system than entire welfare families take out of it, you’re not being taxed — you’re being robbed. And no Australian should be taxed so heavily that they’re personally footing the bill for multiple overpaid public servants.

This is what real income tax reform looks like: bold, simple, and fair.

And thankfully, we’re seeing signs of that boldness emerge — at least from one side of politics.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s announcement that a Liberal-National Coalition government would halve the fuel excise for 12 months is exactly the kind of direct relief Australians need. A two-car family could save up to $1,500 in just one year. That’s serious money back in people’s pockets — now, not in 2026.

Labor wants Australians to clap for 70 cents a day in 15 months. Dutton’s talking about $28 a week, starting from the first day of government. That’s the difference between symbolism and substance.

But Dutton shouldn’t be doing things by half-measures. If he’s prepared to cut 50% of the excise on fuel, he should just be done with it and cut it altogether. And he shouldn’t time-limit the cut. If fuel tax is a burden now, it’ll still be a burden a year from now. Ease it once, and he’ll just have to ease it again later. Scrap it. Permanently.

Peter Dutton needs to stand up and say what needs to be said — that Australians are overtaxed, overcharged, and over it.

And before the usual suspects cry poor about how we “pay for it” — I’ve got the answer.

We pay for it by cutting the fat. Just look at what’s happening in the U.S. under Trump’s comeback charge. Elon Musk is running the new Department of Government Efficiency — DOGE — and in just a few months it’s uncovered $105 billion in waste. Their goal? Slash $1 trillion in a year. Not through austerity. Through common sense.

We need our own DOGE right here in Australia. A full audit of every program, every department, every cent of spending. Cut the waste, kill the bureaucracy, and hand the savings back to the people who earned it.

Because right now, we’re being taxed into the ground to fund a machine that’s doing nothing for us.

So let me ask you: why should someone in poverty be taxed? Why should someone successful be punished for working hard?

They shouldn’t.

We need a new direction. A government that believes in you, not the system. It’s time to raise the tax-free threshold, cap the top rate of tax, scrap fuel excise entirely and permanently, slash government waste — and unleash Australia and Australians.

And to tell Labor where they can stick their 70 cents.

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Republished with thanks to Nation First. Image courtesy of Adobe.