Labor vague on bank taxes

Ian Rogers
Bill Shorten’s media release carefully omitted mention of the design or detail of his
It's a pay as much as you want rule, for now, in the world of Australian financial taxation.

"We're going to ask the banks to put a little bit back" Labor opposition leader Bill Shorten said yesterday.

Shorten's media release carefully omitted mention of the design or detail for his, for now, unfunded "$640 million Banking Fairness Fund."

Shorten said that "the fund will raise $160 million per year from Australia's biggest banks to revolutionise the services available to Australians in financial difficulty - a key recommendation from the Royal Commission".

The Labor leader did not elaborate on the material dropped into the Monday morning media cycle that all financial enterprises in the ASX100 will be liable. He simply did not mention this topic at all.

An easy method for a new Australian Labor government to collect more in tax is to jack up the bank levy imposed by Scott Morrison's government on the five biggest banks in 2017, and there was plenty of guesswork yesterday that this is likely.