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

The tax relief depends on a person's income and, indeed, it would apply to a lawyer working for a large telco as well. They're well paid as well. What the honourable member is trying to argue is that the tax in personal income tax reform is lacking in equity. Yet, under our plan, by 2024-25, not only will 94 per cent of Australians pay no more than 32½c on every dollar—any dollar they earn—over $41,000 until they get to $200,000 when the 45c tax rate comes in, but taxpayers earning over $200,000, paying 45c tax, plus of course the Medicare levy, will constitute a larger share of the overall number of taxpayers and a substantially larger share of the total personal income tax receipts.

All of those people—all of those police sergeants and police inspectors, all of those headmistresses and headmasters of schools around the country, that are earning incomes around that level, as they will be by 2024-25—earning above $125,000, some of them over $200,000, will be contributing more of the tax take than they are today. On any test, our reform is fair. It results in a flatter income tax system that encourages aspiration and incentive and enterprise, and that's the big difference. We are inspired by the aspiration of Australians; the Labor Party is mystified by it.

See this speech in context