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

My question is to the Treasurer. This week economist Richard Holden described Labor's CGT changes as 'a productivity-seeking missile that identifies the most dynamic, highest growth, job-creating businesses and taxes them at huge rates upon sale'. Today's national accounts show the sharpest fall in productivity in almost two years, with productivity down by more than five per cent on Labor's watch. Treasurer, why is Labor introducing a productivity tax during a productivity crisis?

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) | Link to this | Hansard source

I just said to the Deputy Prime Minister that I hope the shadow Treasurer asks me about productivity, and he has. There are three reasons I'm pleased he's asking me about productivity. The first reason is that the budget we handed down from this dispatch box a few weeks ago was more focused on the productivity challenge than were any of the budgets handed down by those opposite in the wasted decade of missed opportunities that preceded us. That's the first point.

The second point is that I'm told that the shadow Treasurer put out a press release today talking about productivity, and this is what he said about productivity. He said productivity is down by five percent since this government took office. So I checked out that number, and I'm pleased that I did. I want to tell the House why I'm pleased I checked out that number. It turns out that the five per cent number that the shadow Treasurer is using includes the March quarter of 2022. Now, we were elected in May of 2022, the first time. So I thought to myself, 'I wonder why he's including the March quarter of 2022 and pretending Labor was in office when the coalition was in office.' Let me tell you why he's doing that. It's because productivity in the March quarter of 2022 fell by 2.3 per cent, and that was the biggest fall in productivity in more than 40 years.

So it always pays to check the numbers. The shadow Treasurer got the fuel excise wrong, he got his fuel security policy wrong, he got the number of shareholders amongst young people wrong and he got the dual mandate for the Reserve Bank wrong—again and again and again.

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

The manager on a point of order?

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction) | Link to this | Hansard source

On relevance: the question was, why are you putting in place a productivity tax during a productivity crisis?

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, that was the question, but the other issues I think the Treasurer is addressing are regarding the capital gains tax changes—the way they were described as a 'missile that identifies the most dynamic, highest growth, job-creating' and a whole lot of other things. He wasn't asked about the opposition, so I'm just going to make sure that the Treasurer is being directly relevant. He won't be able to talk about the opposition's policy, because he wasn't asked about the opposition's policy; he was asked about his policies. The Treasurer has the call.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was asked about productivity and the performance of productivity in our economy, and I've explained why the number the shadow Treasurer used today is especially dishonest.

When it comes to the tax reforms in the budget, it takes a special kind of thinker to see a productivity challenge that has existed in our economy for decades and think the answer to that is to leave everything exactly as it is. When Howard and Costello made the big mistake at the turn of the century, they said that share investment would go up, and it went down. It turbocharged the challenges we have in our housing market. It locked generation after generation of young people out of housing. We're taking the difficult decisions to change that, and we've got a budget which is very focused on productivity as well.