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

I thank the honourable member for her question. The government's plan for personal income tax is a long-term plan that makes the personal income tax system fairer and provides more incentives for Australians to get ahead, to get a raise, to get another job, to take a promotion, to work some overtime, to start a business. The honourable member mentioned a worker on $50,000 a year. That worker would receive $530 back next year as a tax refund under the government's plan. But, more importantly and over the longer term, the worker the honourable member talks about is going to know that she will be working in an environment where 94 per cent of Australians will not pay a marginal tax rate on an extra dollar more than 32½c. That is the reform and that is going to mean that, from $41,000 all the way up to $200,000, a marginal rate of 32½c will apply. It will provide enormous incentives for people to get ahead. It's not as low as the tax rate that the Leader of the Opposition recommended years ago—he thought there should be a top tax rate of 30 per cent—but it is 32½ per cent. And, of course, it isn't unlimited as he proposed years ago; it stops at $200,000, where the 45c marginal rate commences.

The Labor Party have made a number of false statements about our personal income tax reform. One of them—which has been comprehensively debunked, of course, but bears repeating—is that this is unfair. A person on $200,000 under our reforms will pay nearly 13 times as much tax as somebody on $41,000. They'll earn a little less than five times as much but pay nearly 13 times as much tax. In fact, taxpayers in the 45c tax category will pay a higher personal of total personal income tax receipts than they do today.

This is a plan that is thought out. It's considered. It is long term, and it provides the assurance that we will be respecting and encouraging the incentive and the enterprise, the spirit, that have delivered us 1,013,600 jobs since the coalition came into office. And that is the spirit that the Labor Party would crush with their job-destroying, antibusiness program. (Time expired)

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