Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

What an extraordinary MPI! I say to the shadow Treasurer: yes, we have different priorities on tax to you. Yes, we are not the party of higher taxing, higher spending and bigger deficits. We are not the party that believes that people who are earning $87,001 should be treated as millionaires, as this litany of ridiculous questions in question time prove. We do not believe that small businesses with a turnover of between $2 million and $10 million should be taxed and treated like Google or Apple. Every time they talk about multinational tax, with reference to small businesses between $2 million and $10 million turnover—no, we do not believe that they should be treated like Apple and Google.

So we have very different priorities on tax. I say to the shadow Treasurer, the failed former immigration minister, the failed former Treasurer with his Bowen's black hole of $18 billion—go to the next election with a commitment to raise personal income taxes, and make those arguments. Keep arguing that 49.5 per cent is apparently a very low and generous tax rate bestowed on Australian income-earners by the shadow Treasurer. You keep making those arguments; we are the party of small business and lower taxes, so our priorities are very different.

We are also the party of integrity in our tax system. We are a party, unlike the shadow Treasurer, that will impose the bank levy, which will raise $6.4 billion over the forward estimates. No matter how many ridiculous arguments the shadow Treasurer raises, it will raise that money. The attacks on Treasury in that regard have been disgusting. But we will ensure integrity in our tax system. We will ensure that banks, who enjoy a place in our system with the four pillars bank policy, with a regulatory regime which is really the envy of the rest of the world in a financial services context, that they pay a little bit more to contribute to budget repair. We have the shadow Treasurer and the opposition leader, who come in here every single day parroting the lines of the big banks. They were all hairy-chested in here for months, talking about a banking royal commission, and now that we are trying to get a fair additional contribution out of our large banks to assist with budget repair, to assist in guaranteeing the services that Australians deserve, we have the shadow Treasurer and the Leader of the Opposition parroting these ridiculous lines that the big banks have presumably put them up to say in this place.

Also on integrity, we believe in lower taxes, of course, but we also do not believe in a self-help system. We think there must be integrity in our tax system. That is why it is quite extraordinary that last year, led by the shadow Assistant Treasurer here, the Labor Party voted against laws which improved multinational tax avoidance in this country. Just this week, in Senate estimates, it was confirmed that an additional $2 billion has been raised in connection with the multinational tax avoidance legislation that the Labor Party voted against. In Senate estimates it was confirmed that there was a direct connection between raising that money and the change in law.

Unlike the Labor Party, we do not believe that rhetoric, trying to bash Apple and Google in this House, and voting against laws, the toughest anti-avoidance laws seen in the OECD, is consistent with that approach. So we will continue to advocate for lower taxes, but not a self-help system—taxes where there is integrity and where every single company, from the small milk bar to Apple and Google are paying a fair contribution of tax in this country.

But the biggest disgrace of the Labor Party's approach on tax is their approach to small business—their callous disregard of small business. Do the Labor Party realise that there are literally tens of thousands of businesses in this country with a turnover of between $2 million and $10 million who should not be treated like Apple, Google, BHP Billiton or Rio Tinto? These are businesses where every single dollar in tax that they save gets reinvested into the business, gets reinvested into employing more workers and gets reinvested into increasing salaries for their workers. For so many small businesses, it is like a family.

In recent years we have seen that small businesses have been the engine room of growth in jobs in this country—the absolute engine room of growth. So, when members of the Labor Party go to their electorates, they should go into those cafes and small businesses with one or two employees and tell them that they do not deserve a tax cut. Tell them that they should be treated like some big, evil multinational—as the Labor Party would say. Go into those small businesses and tell them, 'You don't deserve access to the instant asset write-off'—the $20,000 instant write-off that will now be available to businesses with a turnover of between $2 million and $10 million. You go and tell them that they do not deserve that. I can tell you right now that there are businesses with one or two employees who will have a turnover of over $2 million. And, according to the Labor Party and according to the shadow Treasurer, they should be treated like large businesses. We disagree.

Perhaps the reason we disagree is that on this side of the House we have people who have come out of small businesses. Perhaps it is because we have people on this side of the House who have actually stumped up their own hard-earned—who have perhaps taken out a mortgage against their own family home to take a risk, to be entrepreneurial—to set up a small business, and they know that every single dollar of tax that they save goes to strengthen their business, and we see the benefits throughout the economy by assisting small businesses in that way.

That is perhaps the most tawdry aspect of the Labor Party's approach—that they would deny tax cuts to small businesses with a turnover of between $2 million and $10 million, not only on the headline company tax rate but also the access to the small asset write-off. It is an absolute disgrace. I repeat: we on this side of the House have very different priorities from the Labor Party. We do not think it is appropriate that, for every additional dollar that somebody earns, one dollar should go to the government and one dollar should go to yourself. We do not think that you should work one day for the government and one day for yourself. We believe that, in order to incentivise people to work harder, to strive harder, to do more and to provide for their own families—

Dr Leigh interjecting—

It is not our money to tax; we do not have a God-given right to tax their money. I know the Labor Party think that. We believe that it is their money and we do not want to disincentivise people from doing what they need to do to get ahead.

Dr Leigh interjecting—

I will not take that interjection from the shadow Assistant Treasurer; I will continue.

See this speech in context