Labor may back lower backpacker tax rate

Labor may back a lower backpacker tax rate proposed by Tasmanian independent senator Jacqui Lambie.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten on Sunday said Labor would wait to see what a Senate committee recommends on the plan to tax backpackers 19 cents in the dollar on all their earnings but is open to supporting the Tasmanian proposal of dropping the rate further to 10.5 per cent.

"The government cannot count upon our vote to simply support its latest botched compromise," he told ABC TV.