Essential Report
Income tax or GST
Q. To raise more Government revenue to maintain services and reduce debt, which of the following actions would you favour most?
Total | Vote Labor | Vote Lib/Nat | Vote Greens | Vote other | Nov 2015 | ||||
Increase income taxes | 29% | 39% | 21% | 42% | 30% | 27% | |||
Increase the GST | 22% | 16% | 37% | 14% | 13% | 26% | |||
Expand the GST to cover food, health and education | 12% | 12% | 16% | 8% | 9% | 14% | |||
Don’t know | 37% | 33% | 26% | 36% | 48% | 33% | |||
To raise more Government revenue to maintain services and reduce debt, 29% favoured increasing income taxes, 22% favoured increasing the GST, and 12% expanding the coverage of the GST. This indicates a small shift away from making changes to the GST since this question was asked in November.
Liberal/National voters (37%) were more inclined to favour increasing the GST while Labor voters (39%) and Greens voters (42%) favoured increasing income tax.

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