John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I seek the indulgence of the chair to add to an answer.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister may proceed.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In an answer to a question from, I think, the member for La Trobe at the beginning of question time I said that there had been a significant reduction in tax for people earning less than $35,000 a year. In fact, the scale of the change for people on low incomes is greater than I said in the answer. In fact, the relevant figure is, for anybody earning less than $30,000 a year—and let me remind the House again that the point is that, indeed, more than 60 per cent of working mothers work part time; this is particularly applicable to them—in 2004-05 that person would have paid $5,172 in tax. By contrast, from 1 July this year that tax burden will be cut to $2,850. That is a measure of the way in which tax cuts in the last budget have been slanted towards people on low and middle incomes.