Stimulus cash payments will go to criminals just as similar payments were paid to them by the Howard government, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has told parliament.
The government is under attack for planning to make payments of up to $900 to prison inmates, dead people and their pets as well as Australians living overseas, as part of its $42 billion stimulus package.
Mr Rudd accused the opposition of feigning outrage.
"I am advised that under the Howard government ... bonuses were paid to people in exactly the same situation," he said in response to a question from Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull.
Opposition MPs supported such payments when they were in government, Mr Rudd said.
"Now they have undergone a 180-degree backflip because they are governed by political opportunism," Mr Rudd said.
Stimulus package bonuses were available to anyone who was an Australian resident, for tax purposes, in the 2007-08 income tax year and who met other eligibility requirements.
There was only one tax treatment - the senior Australian tax offset - that excluded those in jail.
The Australian Taxation Office had advised the government it could not exclude from the bonus people who paid tax in the 2007-08 financial year, Mr Rudd said.
He advised Mr Turnbull to reflect on what the coalition did in government and "apply the same principles to yourself".
Pensioners and other Australians living overseas are also eligible for the stimulus cash payments, aimed at boosting the local economy.
Pets, who have been left estates by their deceased owners, could also receive the payments.
Liberal frontbencher Tony Smith said the stimulus package was "Kev's (Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's) cash for crims".
"That's what this has come down to," he told reporters.
Liberal backbencher Stuart Robert said it was "outrageous" payments were going to criminals and not self-funded retirees.
"I find it ironic that murderers, rapists and drug dealers will get $900 but many self-funded retirees will not," he said.
Liberal backbencher Jamie Briggs described the payments as a farce.
"This is ridiculous to be sending money to the very worst criminals in our society."
Colleague Bronwyn Bishop said the government had been sloppy in allocating payments.
Labor backbencher Richard Marles said the cash payments needed to be paid out quickly to boost the economy.
"Paying a cash bonus through the taxation system... is the most rapid way we can get money out there," he told reporters.
Labor senator Doug Cameron said it was understandable there might be "some problems in small areas".
"But the main effect of this is to make sure that we are not caught up in the economic cycle that is affecting the whole world," he told reporters.
Senator Cameron described as "absolutely ridiculous" a suggestion the payments would stimulate the trade of illegal drugs.
Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said if prisoners were eligible for the tax bonus it should be put to better uses, adding his party would have preferred the stimulus package to have supported infrastructure, health and bikeways.
"It was done very, very quickly, on the run and it was bound to have anomalies and there'll be more turn up," he told reporters.
Liberal frontbencher George Brandis said the situation was "disgraceful".
Another Liberal frontbencher Scott Morrison said the government did not think about the unintended consequences of its stimulus package.
"Whether it's cash for crims or dosh for dogs, wherever this money is ending up, it's showing the government just doesn't think these things through," he told reporters.
Frontbench colleague Tony Abbott said the government needed to careful with taxpayers' money during the economic downturn.
"If they thought these things through better you wouldn't have the situation that we have seen," he said.
But Labor backbencher Mark Butler said there was no other way the government could have administered the payments.
"It's not something that we are going to be able to undo without putting at risk the overall objective of stimulating the economy."
ninemsn 18 Mar 2009
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