It's also why the OECD and the Australian Bureau of Statistics have gone out of their way to say that our policies are directly reducing inflation in our economy. That's because we designed our cost-of-living help to take pressure off inflation rather than add to it. We know the combination of energy bill relief, early childhood education reform and rent assistance took something like half a percentage point off inflation last year. We know our tax cuts won't add to the inflation problem either and won't add to deficits, but they will boost labour supply in our economy. As the minister said a moment ago and others have said—the Prime Minister—getting on top of inflation, getting real wages moving, rolling out the tax cuts and paying super on paid parental leave, as Linda White and Peta Murphy urged us to do—all this is about ensuring people earn more, keep more and retire with more as well.
The reason why the new member for Dunkley sits on this side of the House and not on that side of the House is that we have a plan to ease cost-of-living pressures and they don't. If they had their way, inflation would still be galloping, wages would still be stagnating, there'd be debt and deficit as far as the eye could see and people would be working longer for less. The Dunkley by-election showed, and their behaviour today shows, their nasty negativity is no substitute for economic credibility. Almost two years in and they still have no alternatives except for the economic insanity of their uncosted nuclear fantasy. We reject their approach, we're managing the economy, we're managing the budget responsibly, we're making progress on inflation and real wages, we are repairing the budget, we are laying the foundations for growth and we are cleaning up the mess they left behind. (Time expired)
]]>I'm very pleased and proud to say that today Labor's cost-of-living tax cuts passed this House. This means that Australian workers are now one step closer to a bigger tax cut for more people to help with the cost of living. It means all 13.6 million Australian taxpayers can now look forward to a tax cut on 1 July. It means 11½ million of them can look forward to a bigger tax cut on 1 July.
We did this for the truckies and for the teachers. We did it for the steelworkers and the health workers. We did it for the nurses and the plumbers. We did it to support every Australian who works hard to provide for their loved ones and to get ahead. And we did it because we know people are under pressure from higher interest rates, persistent inflation and global economic uncertainty.
We saw the consequences of those three things in the job numbers that came out this morning. We saw unemployment tick up to 4.1 per cent. Nobody likes to see that, but we need some perspective here. As the member for Parramatta said in his contribution a moment ago, average unemployment under this government is 3.6 per cent. Average unemployment under those opposite was 5.6 per cent. Two percentage points different. We've had 650,000 jobs created under this Prime Minister—the fastest job growth compared to any major advanced economy in that period. What we're seeing in the economy is unemployment, which has ticked up today but which is still extraordinarily low by historical standards. What we saw today in the unemployment data makes our strategy even more important. We will ease the pressure on people, repair the budget and invest in the future of the economy. The tax cuts are central to this strategy. They are relief, they are reform, and they are responsible. They're better for Middle Australia and better for the economy. They lay bare the main difference between this side of the House and that side of the House. We want more people to earn more and to keep more of what they earn. Those opposite want people working longer for less. After all of their whimpering and whingeing, that's what this boils down to. First, they rolled over, and now they want to roll back. The difference is that we genuinely care about the cost-of-living pressures that people confront. We're doing something about it, even if they couldn't give a stuff.
]]>The Australian people are closer to getting a tax cut because of this legislation before the House today. Now, if those opposite are supporting these tax cuts, they have a funny way of showing it. We heard once again from the member a moment ago and his mate before him. They're going out of their way to bag these tax cuts and they want the Australian people to believe that they support them. Of course they don't, because they are abandoning Middle Australia in opposition just like they abandoned them in government for the best part of a decade.
I want the whole House to know that the effect of the amendment moved by those opposite is to take the words, 'cost of living' out of title of the bill. I mean, oops. Did they really think that through, to take 'cost of living' out of the name of the bill? They don't just want to take 'cost of living' out of the name of the bill; they dare not mention 'cost of living' all week, not in question time, not in the name of this bill, not in the questions they ask or the speeches they give, and that's because they couldn't give a stuff about the cost-of-living pressures that Australian people are facing. We know that because the deputy leader of the Liberal Party, when asked about rolling back the tax changes, said, 'That is absolutely our position.' So if they're supporting these tax cuts, they have got a funny way of showing it. After all of the hyperventilating and all of the red-faced incoherence that we've heard from those opposite, they want the Australian people to believe that they support our tax changes. Of course they don't. They might be voting for it, they might have been dragged to this kicking and screaming, they might vote for it reluctantly in a few minutes, but we know what they really think about the working people of this country.
So I say to the member for Menzies, the member for Groom: ordinarily, when you're asked to speak to an amendment moved by a frontbencher, usually it's because the frontbencher is not available. Now, the frontbencher is right there. He might not be up to it, he might not be the sharpest tool in the shed but he's available. He's right there in the front row. So when the shadow Treasurer gives you an amendment to move and says, 'I'm available to speak to it but I don't want to,' that should ring the alarm bells for the member for Menzies and the member for Groom. Have a yak with the member for Forde; he's been around a little bit longer and he'll give you the heads up.
We on this side support these tax changes enthusiastically. We're very proud that every Australian taxpayer will get a tax cut because of the changes that we are putting through the House today, and 11½ million Australians will get a bigger tax cut to deal with the cost-of-living pressures that we understand, even if those opposite don't.
]]>It's a huge issue, and I thank the hundreds of people who come to his community forums around Australia and all the people who come through our doors in our electorate offices and come up to us at mobile offices too, who are evidence enough of that. In 2022, Australians lost over $3 billion to the absolute grubs who try and scam money out of people—often the most vulnerable people but, as the member identifies in his question, not just people that we would traditionally consider to be vulnerable. That's why we're taking decisive action and it's why we have an ambitious agenda here, led, as I said, by the Assistant Treasurer. In last year's budget, we invested $86.5 million in fighting scams and online fraud; $17.6 million for ASIC to bust fake investment websites; $58 million for the ACCC to establish the world-leading National Anti-Scam Centre; and over $10 million for ACMA to establish and enforce an SMS centre ID registry to stop scam texts—and again I acknowledge the work of Minister Rowland.
It's still a big problem, but the crackdown on scams is already showing some signs of success. In the six months since the Anti-Scams Centre was created, losses to scams reduced by 29 per cent compared with the same period in 2022. Call disruption technology saved potential victims from major losses, with one consumer saving 300 grand. By last week, ASIC had taken down 4,220 investment scams websites and there are hundreds more in the works. Early data this year shows overall scam losses are around 40 per cent lower than the same period in 2023. The Assistant Treasurer and the Minister for Communications are also working with telcos and digital platforms to see what else can be done in that regard.
This is a very big focus of the government. There has been some absolutely terrific work done by the Assistant Treasurer. It's a very important and welcomed question from the member for Monash, and I thank him for it.
]]>All of these things—and the member for North Sydney's question and your question, member for Kennedy—I think show that all of these issues around resource taxation are contested. What is not contested is that, if our legislation passes the House, we will collect more tax from offshore gas because of the changes in the budget to the PRRT. We will increase tax receipts from offshore LNG by $2.4 billion over the forward estimates. This will help us fund important priorities like strengthening Medicare or providing cost-of-living relief to people in his community or indeed around Australia. Without those changes, we would collect less revenue, and we would be less able to fund cost-of-living relief for people.
I know that the member for Kennedy has a view around income-splitting. Our view is that we have found more effective ways to provide relief to the types of families that the member for Kennedy is talking about—for example, our tax changes. Every one of the 71,000 taxpayers in Kennedy will get a tax cut because of our changes; 86 per cent of them will get a bigger tax cut than they would have otherwise. In fact, the average income earner in Kennedy will have their tax cut multiplied more than three times by what we are proposing in our changes. Because of those policies, whether they be for medicines, tax, support payments, rent assistance or others, we are providing more support to the people of Kennedy. Thirty-nine thousand people will benefit from cheaper medicines in Kennedy alone. Almost 5,000 are benefiting from income support increases. Four-and-a-half thousand renters get our boost to rent assistance just in Kennedy. And, as I said, 86 per cent of taxpayers in his community would be paying more tax were it not for our changes.
I say to the member for Kennedy: I'm grateful for the question, and I know there are contested views about tax on resources. What isn't contested is that we are doing something about that, and that is helping to fund important cost-of-living relief not just in his community but in every community represented in this place.
]]>This is a really important part of our broader economic strategy to ease the pressure on Australians, to invest in our people and their future and to get the budget in better nick. Our strategy has been endorsed just today, with two new releases. Standard and Poor's reaffirmed our AAA credit rating, praising our strong budget outcomes and endorsing the government's budget strategy. And the Westpac-Melbourne Institute Survey of Consumer Sentiment Index lifted to a 20-month high, and they say it's partly because of our tax plan for Middle Australia.
There is no shortage of challenges in our economy and in the global economy, but we are making welcome and encouraging progress. When we came to office, real wages were going backwards by 3.4 per cent, quarterly inflation was more than three times what it is now, there were huge deficits and there was nowhere near enough to show for a trillion dollars in Liberal debt. Now inflation is moderating, real wages have grown for two consecutive quarters, tax cuts will flow to every taxpayer from 1 July and we have delivered the first surplus in 15 years, which is helping us clean up the mess that we inherited from those opposite.
We know it's not mission accomplished when it comes to inflation or the economy or the budget, and we know that people are still under the pump. That's why easing cost-of-living pressures is this government's highest priority. That's why these tax cuts come on the top of rent assistance, electricity bill relief, cheaper child care, cheaper medicines and more, and it's why we are focused on boosting take-home pay.
It's here, as the Prime Minister said, that the defining difference between those opposite and this government is the clearest. This Albanese Labor government is working to ensure that more Australians earn more and that they keep more of what they earn, whereas that opposition wants people to work longer and for less. It was clear last night in the documentary that ordinary working people didn't get a look-in for the best part of a decade of dysfunction, division and disarray. And now the leftovers from that period have abandoned Middle Australia in opposition, just like they abandoned them in government. They don't even pretend to care about the cost of living anymore. If they cared about the cost of living, they wouldn't have voted against electricity bill relief. If they cared about the cost of living, they wouldn't have said they would unwind our tax cuts for middle Australia. And if they cared about the cost of living, they would actually ask a question about it.
]]>So, the principle that is in the question from the member for North Sydney is a principle that we have adopted, trying to raise a bit more tax out of the industry that she identifies in order to fund some of our priorities. Because of that, because of our responsible economic management—whether it's sensible changes to resource taxation, whether it's our changes to multinational tax, whether it's our changes to high-balance superannuation accounts or whether it's our efforts on compliance in a whole range of areas—in addition to the $50 billion of savings that we found in two budgets compared with the zero dollars in savings in their last budget, we have managed to get the budget in much better nick at the same time as we roll out that substantial cost-of-living help: strengthening Medicare, building a future made in Australia, and easing the pressure on families, pensioners and young people in communities like yours and indeed right around Australia.
]]>As the Prime Minister said, more people working, more people earning more, more people keeping more of what they earn—that is responsible economic management. By getting the budget in better nick, we can invest in housing and skills and energy and roll out more help for more people, not just in Dickson and Dunkley or Farrer or Forde or Lyons or Leichhardt but in every community and right up and down the income scale.
Since we announced our changes, those opposite have been tying themselves in knots over our changes. If they support our changes, why do they keep bagging them? And, if they don't support them, why are they voting for our changes? Every once in a while, we get a real insight into what they think about tax changes, like when the member for Farrer said they'd absolutely roll them back; like when it was put to the member for Hume yesterday on Insiders that they were supporting our changes, and he said, 'No, we're not'; like when he was asked on the Sunrise program if he wanted more support at the lower end and he said no. I thought I'd misheard it, so I checked his transcript, and I discovered a very curious thing: the word 'no' is missing from the transcript. The word that they utter most frequently is missing from his own transcript.
Because of our responsible economic management, we've delivered the first surplus in 15 years. Inflation is moderating, wages are growing and, from 1 July, every Australian taxpayer gets a tax cut. Because of a decade of coalition disunity, dysfunction and disarray, those opposite are the party of higher quarterly inflation, the party of lower wages and harsher industrial relations, the party of higher taxes on middle Australia, the party of waste and rorts and bigger deficits and more debt. So I say to Australians tuning into the ABC tonight: if they thought that the Abbott and Turnbull and Morrison governments were bad, the leftovers of those governments are even worse.
]]>Our mission as a government is to try and modernise the economy and maximise our advantages so that we can position our people as the major beneficiaries of change, rather than as victims of change, in our economy and our society. That's really the motivation behind a whole raft of policies in the various portfolios represented along the front here. It's certainly the motivation behind the Intergenerational report and the focus on the five big intergenerational challenges and chances. It's certainly the focus of our human capital agenda, which we laid out collectively in our employment white paper not that long ago. It's behind our efforts to get the budget in much better nick so that future generations aren't carrying a disproportionate burden when it comes to repaying the trillion dollars in Liberal debt that we were left to deal with.
It's the motivation behind our housing agenda to try and build more homes. It's the motivation behind the energy transformation, which I know the member shares a deep and abiding interest in. It's also the motivation behind some of the newer things that we are trying in our portfolios—and I'm working closely with the minister here—when it comes to trying to break the cycle of intergenerational disadvantage, particularly in communities like the one that sends me to this place to work on their behalf. The intergenerational issues are also a big motivating force behind our tax reform agenda. Be it the superannuation tax concessions changes that we're proposing, getting a fairer return via the PRRT for our resources, multinational tax reform, tax breaks for energy efficiency, tax breaks for EVs or tax breaks for more build-to-rent properties, there is an intergenerational element to this which I think is really important.
To finish with where I think the honourable member's question comes from, it's a big motivation behind the tax changes that we proposed this week and seek to legislate in this place. I do understand that, even after these important changes, it will always require the ongoing interest and effort from governments like ours to deal with some of these intergenerational challenges. But I also want to point out that our tax changes are much better for young people than the old stage 3 tax cuts that they replaced were. That's for 90 per cent of people under 35—
]]>These are the workers that those opposite have tried to dud and diminish, and they're still at it. They say they support our tax cuts, but their heart is not in it. We know this because the Deputy Leader said that, of course and absolutely, they'd try and roll them back. We know this because the shadow Treasurer described bigger tax cuts as Marxism. If they really support these tax cuts, why are they still bagging them? If they think we're wrong about this, why don't they vote against them in the parliament? After five years and everything that's happened in between, all they can come up with is the old stage 3 cuts that the member for Cook announced all those years ago. That's not a policy; that's a defibrillator trying to revive the Morrison government.
They've learned nothing from their decade of division and dysfunction and failure in the economy. That's why their position on tax is indefensible and unsustainable. That's why the Opposition Leader absolutely disintegrated on national TV last night. He doesn't understand that anger is not an alternative. He doesn't understand his nasty negativity is no substitute for economic credibility. Theirs is a recipe for higher inflation, lower wages and smaller tax cuts for the workers of middle Australia. After this week, a few things have been made absolutely clear under this Prime Minister and his government. Only Labor puts people before politics. Only Labor is the party of middle Australia. Only Labor is the party of aspiration. Only Labor is the party of working people, their families and their communities. Only Labor is the party of bigger tax cuts for more people to help with cost of living. That's why we are so proud of the tax cuts in the legislation before the House.
]]>When it comes to bracket creep, we do acknowledge the impact that bracket creep has on take-home pay. What the parliament also needs to acknowledge and recognise is that there is more than one way to return bracket creep to hardworking Australians. There is the way that the member for Goldstein asks about. There is the way that was legislated five years ago by the previous government, and there is the way that this government is going about it. We acknowledge that there are a number of ways to go about it. We're not proposing to index the thresholds as the member for Goldstein is suggesting. But we think we have found a very effective way to return bracket creep to more people. What the parliament needs to understand—I'm confident that the crossbench does and I know for a fact that our side of the parliament does but I'm not so sure that those opposite do—is that you can return bracket creep in a number of ways. It doesn't just have to be returned disproportionately to people who are already on the highest incomes. What the Treasury advice makes really clear—the Treasury advice that we released at the same time we announced our position and our policy—is that what we are doing is returning bracket creep where bracket creep does the most damage, and that's through the middle incomes.
One of the motivations for the design of the tax package that we released almost a couple of weeks ago is that, as the average tax rates of people on lower and middle incomes climb faster, and as their incomes rise, bracket creep does the most damage, so our responsibility and our objective is to return more bracket creep to middle Australia. That's why, I think, from memory, average tax rates go, as a consequence of what we're proposing, from 25.4 per cent to 23.9 per cent. Getting those average tax rates down is an indication that we're doing something about bracket creep, even if we're not doing it exactly the way that the member for Goldstein proposes.
]]>I think people know that over the course of summer we have been looking for more ways to provide more help to more people, and it became increasingly clear to us in the lead-up to the cabinet decision on 23 January that the tax system had an important role to play there. So my advice to the opposition is to stop searching around and lurching around for excuses to oppose bigger tax cuts for more people to deal with the cost of living. What we've been motivated by here is the pressure that people are under and we're actually doing something about it.
]]>That's why I say to the people of Australia watching that documentary on the ABC: if you thought the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments in the Nemesis doco were bad, we now know from this tax debacle on that side of the House that the dregs of those governments are even worse.
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