House debates Questions without Notice: Additional Answers

Budget 2007-08

Monday, 21 May 2007 House of Representatives

John Howard

John Howard Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister

3:07 pm

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

David Hawker

David Hawker Speaker

The Prime Minister may proceed.

John Howard

John Howard Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister

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.