Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer explain to the House how the government is fixing problems in our taxation system so that we can meet our responsibilities to the next generation of Australians?

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

I thank the member for his question and his interest in ensuring that our tax system has integrity. In the budget we made a commitment to ensure that we would deal with the specific problems in our tax system so that we could fund the important services that Australians rely on. Critical to that plan was ensuring that multinationals pay their fair share of tax and do the right thing by Australian taxpayers in terms of our tax system. We have been delivering on that commitment more than any government has ever delivered on multinational tax reform in this Commonwealth.

Just last night, the diverted profits tax legislation that was announced in the budget passed the parliament. On this occasion it had the support of those opposite. But I am reminded of the time when we brought in multinational anti-avoidance legislation to this parliament and the Labor Party opposed it. Over and over again, they opposed it. Despite their opposition, we pressed forward. The Tax Avoidance Taskforce was put in place, and they are working to deliver some $3.7 billion in additional revenue to the budget to ensure that we can put in place the services that Australians rely on. But they would not be able to do that job if the government was not able, as we were able to do, to ensure the passage of that multinational anti-avoidance legislation. As a result of that legislation, this year alone we have already been able to claw back in tax liabilities some $2 billion from multinationals.

The Labor Party voted for multinationals to pay less tax. The coalition voted to make sure they paid the tax they should pay, and our measures went into place and our measures are being effective. The Labor Party should be embarrassed by the fact that they voted against those tougher laws. They were humbled into submission last night, because they had to allow the diverted profits tax to pass. They probably wanted to vote against it, but they knew the Australian people were so disappointed in the Labor Party because they talk such a big game on multinational tax avoidance, but when it comes to voting for it they are just vacant.

On top of that, we acted. We acted on ensuring that we had better targeted superannuation tax concessions and we reintroduced the low-income superannuation tax offset that supports some three million low-income Australians and some two million Australian working women. On top of that, we delivered for 500,000 hardworking Australians a tax cut which ensured that those ordinary-time full-time wage-earning Australians did not go into the second highest tax bracket. So this is a government that has been delivering on the tax commitments. Yesterday in this place the Labor Party voted against a principle they said they once believed in. We remain absolutely committed to provide the tax relief businesses deserve. (Time expired)