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

My question is to the Treasurer. Would the Treasurer update the House on the importance of a strong economy to improve the budget and arrest Australia's debt? How does promoting investment in the Australian economy boost revenue to the budget and lift wages for hardworking Australians?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Boothby for her question. I was in South Australia recently and spoke to many South Australian businesses who are looking forward to the introduction of the reduced company tax rate, particularly for small- and medium-sized businesses, because they understand that in the environment where we need Australians to be able to gain more working hours to improve their wages and to improve their earnings, then we need businesses to be in a position to enable them to do that.

Now, those opposite, want to keep businesses on higher rates of tax. How they think that is going to enable a business to give employees more hours of work is beyond me, but we know those opposite, when it comes to tax, can never get enough. And every time they see an estimate which shows some pressures on revenues, what they think they need to do is just keep squeezing that tax lemon as hard as they possibly can. But we know on this side, that we need to be able to support small business and medium-sized business, in particular, to ensure that they can give those employees who work in those businesses the opportunities. It is not just the coalition who believes that; in fact, at a time past, the Leader of the Opposition used to believe in these sorts of things. At the ACOSS event in March 2011, at a time when those opposite had a $47 billion deficit, this is what he said:

Reducing the corporate tax rate … sees more capital flowing into our domestic economy, which will then flow on to workers in the form of higher wages—thereby improving standards of living.

And because reducing the company tax rate is an economic growth instrument, reducing the corporate tax rate … is also an investment in the Australian people—including people who might now be on welfare and require the services of ACOSS members.

He said:

It frees up more capital for business to invest in skills and training and apprenticeships and mentoring—

…   …   …

This makes reducing the rate a productivity improver—given its more capital available per person in the company's workforce and more capital available for potential investment in research and development.

He summed up, saying to ACOSS:

Friends, corporate tax reform helps Australia's private sector grow and it creates jobs right up and down the income ladder.

What hypocrisy now from the Leader of the Opposition, who said that to an ACOSS audience, knowing full well giving companies the opportunity to give people more work and better wages—he now walks away from it. He claims it is to protect the budget, yet they refuse to support $19 billion in savings and, at the same time, having cashed out taking away the corporate tax cut, they still have a deficit which is $16.8 billion higher. This Leader of the Opposition believes in nothing and stands for nothing. If he were ever to have the opportunity to run a budget, he would run it into the ground. (Time expired)