The Australia Institute commissioned ReachTEL to conduct a survey of 1031 residents across the federal electorate of Mayo on the evening of 5 June 2018.

Key results:

• 2-Party Preferred: Centre Alliance 58% Liberal 42%
• Two thirds (65%) of respondents think the Senate should oppose the top end income tax cuts
• When given a list of options for using government revenue, company tax cuts ranked last of 4 options with just 8.7% support.
• Public spending including health, education, infrastructure the most popular option with 51.4% support

Q. The income tax cuts proposed in this years’ Federal Budget come in three parts. The first stage delivers income tax cuts for low and middle-income earners, the third stage removes the 37-cent income tax bracket altogether, meaning someone earning $41,000 would pay the same marginal tax rate as someone earning $200,000 a year.

Do you think the Senate should support or oppose this third part of the tax cut?

“Flattening our income tax system is unfair and will make inequality worse and the electorate understands this, two thirds of people in Mayo think the Senate should oppose the top end tax cuts,” said Ben Oquist, Executive Director of the Australia Institute.

“Time and again we see that people prioritise spending on services and infrastructure over tax cuts. When given the option, half said they’d prefer the money be spent on infrastructure and services like health and education, less than 10% selected company tax cuts or income tax cuts.

“The total $200 billion-plus cost of the combined company and personal income tax cuts are a revenue time bomb,” Oquist said.

Q. It is estimated the company tax cuts package will cost approximately $80 billion over 10 years. How would you prefer the government spend $80 billion?