Essential Report
Attitudes to Proposed Stage 3 Tax Cuts
Q. To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements?
NET: Strongly agree/somewhat agree | NET: Strongly disagree/somewhat disagree | Don’t know | |
Maintaining funding for education and health is more important than cutting taxes for people earning more than $200,000 | 78% | 12% | 10% |
I think people earning over $150,000 should pay a higher rate of tax than those earning $40,000 | 74% | 17% | 8% |
A $95 billion tax cut for high income earners will make it impossible for government to deliver essential services | 57% | 25% | 18% |
I support reducing taxes by $11,000 per year for people earning over $200,000 | 32% | 55% | 13% |
- Over three-quarters of voters favour funding for education and health over tax cuts for high earners.
- Those most likely to say they supported reducing taxes for high income earners were also younger (40% of 18-34 year olds strongly agreeing) and wealthier (41% of high income earners strongly agreeing). Retirees were less likely to support the policy (66% net disagreeing).
NET: Strongly agree/somewhat agree | Labor | Coalition | Greens | NET: Other | |
Maintaining funding for education and health is more important than cutting taxes for people earning more than $200,000 | 78% | 85% | 74% | 89% | 76% |
I think people earning over $150,000 should pay a higher rate of tax than those earning $40,000 | 74% | 83% | 68% | 85% | 74% |
A $95 billion tax cut for high income earners will make it impossible for government to deliver essential services | 57% | 65% | 52% | 63% | 60% |
I support reducing taxes by $11,000 per year for people earning over $200,000 | 32% | 27% | 43% | 23% | 25% |
- Labor and Greens voters were more likely to agree with statement ‘Maintaining funding for education and health is more important than cutting taxes for those earning more than $200,000’.
- They were also more likely to agree that ‘People earning over $150,000 should pay a higher rate of tax than those earning $40,000’, and that ‘A $05 billion tax cut for high income earners will make it impossible for government to deliver essential services’.
- Coalition voters were more likely to agree with ‘I support reducing taxes by $11,000 per year for people earning over $200,000’, with 43% strongly agreeing compared to 27% of Labor voters, 23% of Greens voters and 25% of Other voters.

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