Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will ensure that I do so. The point is this: this government took a plan to ensure that company taxes were competitive in this country and that they would remain so, and those opposite, the Labor Party, for years and years and years have said on the record, up hill, down dale, that they support reducing the tax burden on businesses, and the shadow Treasurer himself has nominated the rate of 25 per cent as his great aim. He must have the worst aim there is in this place, because, despite us lining this up for him, he cannot hit it. We have delivered a bill into this parliament and all he has to do is vote for it and he will hit it, but he refuses to do so. It is not because I think the shadow Treasurer all of a sudden does not believe that reducing these tax rates for businesses will not actually lead to an increase in investment or an increase in jobs or an increase in wages. It is not any of these things. I actually believe the shadow Treasurer still believes absolutely in what he wrote—that if you reduce company taxes you will get the outcomes of better growth, better investment, more jobs, increased wages. This is what makes the hypocrisy of this decision all the more profound. The shadow Treasurer knows this is the right policy, but he has bowed his knee to the desperate populism of the Leader of the Opposition who, since he became Leader of the Opposition all those years ago, has not announced one policy that will create one job—

Mr Watts interjecting—

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