Hinch key to tax plan

VICTORIAN senator Derryn Hinch is demanding billions of dollars to help pensioners, veterans and low-income earners if he is to support the Turnbull government’s signature plan to cut company taxes.

News Corp understands Senator Hinch — who looms as the decisive vote in the Senate — has a long shopping list which also includes programs to help matureaged unemployed Australians find work, and measures to support renters and regional areas.

A spokesman for Senator Hinch (above) said negotiations with the government had gone “beyond economics”.

“This can move forward if the government helps us with a political solution,” the spokesman said. “Anything Senator Hinch accepts must directly benefit pensioners and low-income earners.”

Senator Hinch also floated increasing the $6 billion bank levy but that appears unlikely, and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has ruled out excluding the banks from his plan to cut the company tax rate from 30 per cent to 25 per cent.

A Labor source said Senator Hinch was “looking for cover” to support the measures that were “deeply unpopular with the people who got him elected”.