Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Leyonhjelm for his question. The coalition government always supports lowering the overall tax burden in the economy where that is possible. Indeed, this morning the Senate voted to reduce the tax burden for 3.1 million hardworking Australians on average full-time wages. Incidentally, the net effect of decisions taken by the government in the 2016-17 budget is a reduction in the overall tax burden in the economy by about $1.2 billion over the forward estimates. This is clearly spelled out on page 6 of statement 4 in Budget Paper No. 1. As highlighted in the budget documents, when you exclude tax integrity measures, the 2016-17 budget reduced the tax burden by around $1.9 billion over the forward estimates.

The government did put forward in the 2016-17 budget a set of reforms to make our superannuation tax arrangements fairer and more sustainable, and in relation to less than 10 per cent of that overall package, after consultation and after feedback, in particular from Liberal and National members and senators, the government made some adjustments—in relation to less than 10 per cent of that original package. We believe that the package that is now on the table—no longer proceeding with the $500,000 lifetime non-concessional cap but instead reducing the non-concessional cap per year from $180,000 down to $100,000 from 1 July 2017—makes the superannuation tax arrangements even fairer, more flexible and more sustainable. These changes better support the aspiration of Australians to be self-sufficient in retirement.

Of course, the government does not shy away from ensuring that the cost of making these adjustments is fully offset so that the effect is not a detraction from the budget bottom line. Therefore we will not proceed with the budget measure to harmonise contribution rules for those— (Time expired)