Don't hit my coal miners
Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon warns the government he'll fight any superannuation tax changes that penalise coal miners earning $140k a year.
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The prospect of a tax rise on the superannuation earnings of wealthy Australians is emerging as another difficult issue for Julia Gillard, with former chief whip Joel Fitzgibbon joining other Labor MPs speaking out about their concerns.
With the May budget approaching, Labor needs to find billions of dollars to pay for programs such as the school funding reforms and the national disability insurance scheme.
The Prime Minister on Wednesday again refused to rule out taxing more from the superannuation earnings of wealthy Australians; but Mr Fitzgibbon worries that Labor might botch the definition of what constitutes a ''wealthy Australian''.
''In Sydney's west you can be on a quarter of a million dollars family income a year and you're still struggling,'' Mr Fitzgibbon told Fairfax Media.
''Coal miners in my electorate earning 100, 120, 130, 140 thousand dollars a year are not wealthy.''
Mr Fitzgibbon would consider changes to the taxing of superannuation at the ''very very very high end'' but would not brook changes that affect ''ordinary people like my coal miners living in the Hunter''.
Mr Fitzgibbon's dissenting comments follow those of former resources minister Martin Ferguson, who said Labor needed to stop waging a ''class war'', and former minister for regional Australia, Simon Crean, who said raising taxes on superannuation would amount to ''trashing'' Labor's brand.
All three men sacrificed their jobs last week by supporting Kevin Rudd as leader over Ms Gillard.
The Prime Minister told ABC radio on Wednesday that when she thinks about superannuation her focus is on the ''interests of working people''.
But Ms Gillard left open the possibility of raising taxes on the superannuation earnings of wealthier Australians.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said on Wednesday that he feared the government would try to keep within its $300 billion debt ceiling by dipping into the savings of ordinary Australian households.
''The Prime Minister will try and buy her future by raiding your superannuation savings,'' he told reporters in Melbourne.
Mr Abbott said last week's comments by Mr Ferguson and Mr Crean showed the government planned to tinker with super arrangements in the upcoming budget.
Labor should be trying to bring people together, not engaging in the ''politics of envy'' when it came to looking at tax breaks for Australia's richest self-funded retirees, he said.
The super savings of Australians would be secure under any future Abbott-led coalition government, he added.
On Tuesday Trade Minister Craig Emerson said Labor was ''not interested in increasing taxation on the everyday working men and women of Australia'' before adding, ''if there is any capacity for, at the very high end, in different areas . . . I'm not saying we could never even look at something like that''.
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