Abbott outed as class warrior intent on taking from the poor and giving to the rich

Excerpt from Nicholas Reece writing in The Age 29 April 2013:

As Age columnist Tim Soutphommasane presciently observed in these pages, ''class warfare'' has become the catchcry of a new conservative political correctness.

The truth of this assessment is made clear by an analysis of the competing policy platforms of Labor and Tony Abbott's Coalition. What it shows is that both parties have policies that result in a redistribution of resources from one group in society to another.

This is not surprising. With only finite revenue, a decision to give to one individual or group means, by definition, that another will miss out.

What is surprising is the extent to which Coalition policies will result in a significant redistribution of wealth upwards rather than downwards. Consider the following Coalition policies:

■ Lower the tax-free threshold from $18,200 to $6000. This will drag more than one million low-income earners back into the tax system. It will also increase the taxes for 6 million Australians earning less than $80,000.

■ Abolish the low-income superannuation contribution. This will reimpose a 15 per cent tax on superannuation contributions for people earning less than $37,000.

■ Abolish the proposed 15 per cent tax on income from superannuation above $100,000 a year. The combined effect of these two superannuation changes is that 16,000 high-income earners with superannuation savings in excess of $2 million will get a tax cut while 3.6 million workers earning less than $37,000 will pay more than $4 billion extra in tax on their super over the next four years.

■ Abolish the means test on the private health insurance rebate. This will deliver a $2.4 billion tax cut over three years for individuals earning over $84,001 a year, or couples earning over $168,001. People on lower incomes will receive no benefit.

■ Introduce a paid parental leave scheme that replaces a mother's salary up to $150,000. To put it crudely, this means a low-income mum gets about $600 per week while a high-income mum gets close to $3000.

■ Abolish the means-tested Schoolkids Bonus that benefits 1.3 million families by providing up to $410 for each primary school child and up to $820 for each high school child.

These policies will result in low- and middle-income earners paying billions of dollars more in tax while those on higher incomes receive billions in tax cuts and new benefits. Rather than take from the rich and give to the poor, the Coalition policies are a case of take from the poor and give to the rich. And this remains the case even taking into account the flow-on effects of the abolition of the carbon price and the funding of the Coalition's paid maternity leave through a tax on big companies.

So who is waging the real class war?