The stage-three tax cuts are bad economic policy – and a dumb political strategy, too

‘Congratulations ALP: you just agreed to go to the next election allowing the Liberal party to say median-income earners were $1,000 better off under them.’ Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

The Albanese government is discovering that mimicking the LNP delivers no benefit. It’s a lesson they will keep getting taught all the way to the next election if they keep the stage-three tax cuts and refuse to raise jobseeker.

It was very easy for the ALP in opposition to sound generous and progressive when talking about jobseeker. And yet when it came to the election last year, the ALP went with the same jobseeker policy as the LNP. You get the reasoning – the LNP can’t criticise and so it will mostly be a non-issue, which was indeed the case.