Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker, I apologise. Thank you for that reminder. As I mentioned, our Personal Income Tax Plan is just one part of a broad approach to taxation reform in our nation. We are also doing a range of things to encourage businesses to grow, and are trying our very best to cut the tax rates so we're internationally competitive for businesses. We have already passed legislation that sees the company tax rate for our small and medium businesses drop to a more competitive rate of 25 per cent for around 3.2 million businesses, who employ more than 6.5 million Australians. We're doing a range of other things as well, like opening up new markets for Australian exporters through comprehensive free trade agreements, investing $75 billion in productivity-enhancing infrastructure, implementing significant reforms to improve competition and choice for Australian consumers, protecting our revenue base through some of the world's toughest anti tax-avoidance laws for big business and stopping the tax burden in the economy from growing past 23.9 per cent.

I want now to reflect on the Personal Income Tax Plan in a slightly more philosophical manner. Today we heard a very fine speech from the Prime Minister about the remarkable contribution that Sir John Carrick made in his service to our nation. Sir John Carrick served during World War II and was held as a prisoner of war by the Japanese. He, along with his fellow soldiers and the 100,000 service men and women and their families who have served in all conflicts and made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation, fought for our freedom, and we owe them our freedom. I was particularly interested to hear from the Prime Minister today that Sir John Carrick was a protege of Menzies, another very fine Australian who made an incredible contribution to our nation. Today just happens to be the 76th anniversary of Sir Robert Menzies's radio address The Forgotten People, which he delivered on 22 May 1942. There are a few parts of his speech that are worth reflecting on in the context of this debate and the approach of those opposite, because it's funny how history tends to repeat at times. In his speech Sir Robert Menzies said:

Quite recently, a bishop wrote a letter to a great daily newspaper … He sought to divide the people of Australia into classes. He was obviously suffering from what has for years seemed to me to be our greatest political disease—the disease of thinking that the community is divided into the … rich and the relatively idle, and the laborious poor, and that every social and political controversy can be resolved into the question: What side are you on?

Now, the last thing that I want to do is to commence or take part in a false war of this kind. In a country like Australia the class war must always be a false war. But if we are to talk of classes, then the time has come to say something of the forgotten class—the middle class—those people who are constantly in danger of being ground between the upper and the nether millstones of the false class war: the middle class who, properly regarded, represent the backbone of this country.

I think that this is where we find ourselves in the tax debate at the moment. Those opposite want to take money from hardworking Australians who, through their own enterprise, through their hard work and through their ambition, effort, independent thought and readiness to serve—again, all words from Sir Robert Menzies—are doing their very best to earn money, provide for their families and give back to their community. Those opposite want to take that money from them. They want to spend it on their behalf. These are the sorts of people who Robert Menzies described as 'salary earners, shopkeepers, skilled artisans, professional men and women, farmers and so on'. He called them the 'backbone of our nation'.

Hardworking Australians are the backbone of our nation. Whether you're a chef, a waitress, a paralegal, a lawyer, a plumber or an engineer, possibly you're an employee, and that's why we are attempting to pass these personal income tax cuts, so that we can support these hardworking Australians to spend money as they see fit, as opposed to those opposite, who want to take their money from them and spend it on their behalf. It's about encouraging people to earn as much money as possible and to be rewarded for that effort, by keeping personal taxes as low as we can whilst also providing for the important social services that we provide for the nation, like education, health and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, helping those who really do need our assistance, but balancing that by also rewarding people who have done the hard yards, through their ambition, through their effort, through their independent thinking and through their service to the nation, to earn money and to succeed. I sincerely hope that we see these personal income tax cuts fully passed by the parliament, because they are going to reward hardworking Australians.

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