Greens launch $21-a-week tax cut in bid to 'replace Labor'

David Shoebridge will propose a $21-a-week tax cut for all taxpayers and an equivalent welfare boost in a speech at the National Press Club.

The Greens say the tax cuts could be paid for by taxing gas and other resources, but those policies have not been formally costed.

The new Greens leader is pursuing sharper differentiation with Labor, but his first few weeks have been derailed by allegations against senator Jordon Steele-John.

The Greens have called for a $21-a-week tax cut for all taxpayers and a welfare boost, in the party's first major policy launch since its new leader vowed to "replace Labor".

David Shoebridge, whose first weeks in the role have been derailed by allegations against Greens senator Jordon-Steele John, will front the National Press Club on Wednesday to launch a tax policy to "turn the tide" on inequality.

The new proposal would raise the tax-free threshold from $18,200 to $26,000 for all personal income taxpayers, a tax cut of up to $1,092 a year or $21 a week.

It would also add the same amount to all income support payments, including the JobSeeker unemployment benefit, student and carer payments, and the Age Pension.

"No matter who you are, whether you're working, studying, looking for work or on a pension, you'll get more," he will say, according to an extract of a speech seen by the ABC.

The policy would cost the budget $22 billion each year, according to the independent Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO). Senator Shoebridge will propose the cost be offset by collecting "rivers of gold" from gas and mining companies.

Some Greens insiders have framed the new leadership as an opportunity to reinvigorate the minor party, with published opinion polls suggesting minimal gain on the 12 per cent primary vote it recorded in the 2025 election, when it lost three lower house seats.

Greens parliamentarians were divided on how to interpret that loss, with some advocating a more constructive relationship with Labor, and others urging sharper differentiation.

Richard Denniss, whose left-wing think tank The Australia Institute is influential in Greens circles, wrote that former leader Larissa Waters was not "shouty" enough and had too much "nuance and subtlety" to cut through.

Senator Shoebridge's claim he would "replace Labor" was seen as a decisive shift from his predecessor, and social media ads featuring deputy Steph Hodgins-May appear modelled on the approach of left-wing politicians in the United States and the United Kingdom.

But allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards women by Senator Steele-John, which he denies, have disrupted the reset, as have reports of a disagreement over Ukraine policy with leadership rival Sarah Hanson-Young.

The press club speech will focus on economic policy, although key details have not yet been fully fleshed out. The Greens's proposal for a 25 per cent gas export tax, adapted from The Australia Institute, has not been costed by the PBO.

Senator Shoebridge will use a figure by The Australia Institute, which suggested a gas tax could raise $17 billion a year.

A related proposal to apply a progressive royalties regime to mining has fewer details. Senator Shoebridge will claim the Greens "would raise" $28 billion from the tax, citing a report from the research organisation Prosper Australia.

But that figure is a ballpark calculation of how much state governments could raise if they all taxed royalties as much as Queensland does. The only federal tax canvassed by the report is offshore petroleum.

Senator Shoebridge's speech extract refers to a "Commonwealth tax" but does not specify which resources it would cover or how it would interact with state royalties, details a Greens source said were still to be determined.

The PBO also noted that the proposed welfare boost "may discourage [some] recipients from working additional hours" because of the way it is structured.

The Greens do not propose to means-test the $1,092 stipend, but the welfare payments themselves would remain means-tested. That means recipients would lose the full $1,092 all at once when they cross over the eligibility threshold for their welfare payment.