House debates
Monday, 23 October 2017
Bills
Medicare Levy Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017, Fringe Benefits Tax Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017, Income Tax Rates Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017, Superannuation (Excess Non-concessional Contributions Tax) Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017, Superannuation (Excess Untaxed Roll-over Amounts Tax) Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017, Income Tax (TFN Withholding Tax (ESS)) Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017, Family Trust Distribution Tax (Primary Liability) Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017, Taxation (Trustee Beneficiary Non-disclosure Tax) (No. 1) Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017, Taxation (Trustee Beneficiary Non-disclosure Tax) (No. 2) Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017, Treasury Laws Amendment (Untainting Tax) (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017, Nation-building Funds Repeal (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) Bill 2017; Second Reading
5:41 pm
Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source
I'm very glad that I got to catch the end of the member for Petrie's speech, because I think that here is the fundamental difference between Labor and those opposite. We think that there are a lot of people who earn a lot less than $180,000 a year who work hard too, who are achieving with their lives and who are contributing to society. The measure of a person is not whether they earn $180,000 a year but what they contribute to their family, to their country, to their community and to their society.
This idea of asking people who are earning more than $180,000 a year to contribute a little more has been called by those opposite a 'success tax'. I tell you who I think the successes are: those parents who are looking after their kids with disability in the family home, struggling for them, advocating for them, arguing for them and demanding better services. They're the successes in my eyes, not necessarily people who are earning $180,000 a year. That is a measure of just about nothing. It's a measure of picking the right job. But I tell you that there are a lot of people working in kindergartens who contribute a lot more to society than people who are working in merchant banking.
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