Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. How can the government seriously claim that inequality is not a problem when under the Prime Minister's current tax policy an investment banker on the top marginal rate can use their family trust to pay zero tax on some of their income while a nurse or a teacher has to pay their full marginal tax rate on all their income?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm sure that in the days when the Leader of the Opposition spent his time sucking up to Richard Pratt he would have been making all these points! He would have been down there at Raheen saying, 'You're doing too well, Dick; you've got to pay a bit more tax.' That's what he would have said. Can you imagine this social mountaineer? He was there, sucking up to the billionaires of Melbourne, and now he wants to proclaim himself the champion of the poor and oppressed?

It wasn't so long ago that he was going around talking about the virtues of trusts. In fact, when he was the minister for revenue and Assistant Treasurer in 2011, he used to go from one financial planning conference to another, talking about how he loved trusts, how useful they were and how important they were for small business.

Ms Butler interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Griffith will leave under 94(a).

The member for Griffith then left the chamber.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is always telling people what they want to hear. Now he's decided that he wants to be an Australian version of Jeremy Corbyn. Let me tell you, mate: you haven't got what it takes to be Jeremy Corbyn. You need to do a bigger makeover than you have done already.

The reality is this: as we know, we have in Australia relatively high minimum wages compared to many other countries and we have a means-tested welfare system. As Dr Leigh, the shadow assistant Treasurer, has written in his work over the years, that is why income household income inequality is less marked in Australia than it is in the United States or the United Kingdom. It is why, for example, when the Leader of the Opposition gave his speech at the Melbourne Institute, he was quickly denounced by none other than Professor Roger Wilkins, the author of HILDA:

In his speech to the annual Economic and Social Outlook Conference Professor Wilkins said a narrative claiming that inequality was ever rising was "patently false" from the available evidence we have.

This clearly shocked that distinguished academic, but it did not shock any of us, because we know that the way to address low wages and slow growth is to support growth and investment. That's what we're doing. Labor has not got a single policy that would support economic growth. In fact, when put on the rack by the redoubtable Fran Kelly on Radio National on this very point, all he could do was stumble and bumble and say, 'We like public transport.' I tell you what, Mr Speaker: under a Shorten government we'll all be getting a train to Centrelink! (Time expired)