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A new tax rate for the highest income earners, introducing wealth and inheritance taxes and extracting more revenue from gas companies form part of a new leftwing manifesto circulating ahead of the Labor party’s national conference.
The extra tax revenue could help raise the jobseeker rate, make education – including university – free, and nationalise aged care under what the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) calls a blueprint for a “working-class agenda”.
The AMWU describes the 32-page manifesto not as a “polite request” but a “working-class instruction to the government on how to build a society that actually works for us all”.
The union’s agenda has not been costed and goes well beyond what the Albanese government would realistically consider adopting.
But the suite of ideas will help frame the backdrop to Labor’s national conference in Adelaide this week, where MPs, trade unions and rank-and-file members will gather to thrash out the party’s policy platform.
The union for manufacturing workers is one of the loudest progressive voices in the labour movement, strongly advocating for policies such as winding-back property investor tax concessions well before the Albanese government eventually pursued it.
The new “blueprint for action” proposes a wide-ranging economic and social policies aimed at putting wealth and power into the hands of working-class people.
Describing the taxation system as “rigged in favour of private wealth accumulation and speculation”, the document suggests a new marginal tax rate for people earning above $500,000 a year.
The highest marginal tax rate is currently set at 47% – including the 2% Medicare levy – and applies to income above $190,000.
The document advocates for an annual wealth tax on assets (excluding the family home) and an inheritance tax on large bequests to prevent the “intergenerational concentration” of wealth.
The blueprint renews the AMWU’s support for higher taxes on gas exports, calling for a “fundamental reform” to the petroleum resource rent tax.
Labor is set to make an in-principle commitment to the policy at the national conference, with the text of the draft platform binding the party to ensure that taxpayers receive a “fairer return” on natural resources.
The parliamentary party is not required to implement the policy and Anthony Albanese is not considering a gas tax due to the uncertainty that the Middle East crisis has caused to the international oil market.
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But entrenching the position in Labor policy would add to the pressure on the government to act, which has been building for months via a campaign from advocates including ACT senator David Pocock and the Australia Institute thinktank.
The AMWU’s blueprint also supports winding back fuel tax credits for large mining companies, which will also be up for debate at the conference.
The union’s agenda proposes adding dental to Medicare and making all levels of education, from childcare to university, free.
It also advocates raising welfare payments to end poverty and nationalising the aged care system to ensue that social security is a “right, not a precarious privilege”.
The AMWU wants workers to have veto rights over the use of artificial intelligence in their workplaces and the ability to negotiate for a share of the extra revenue it might generate.
The blueprint also proposes a pathway to “sovereignty and justice” for Indigenous Australians, which includes enacting the Uluru statement from the heart – including the voice to parliament – and abolishing symbols of “colonial oppression”, such as the union jack on the Australia flag, from public life.
The union declined to comment on the blueprint or clarify if it intended to specifically push the various ideas at Labor national conference, which runs from Thursday to Saturday.
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