Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Hume for that question. Increasing the overall tax burden in the economy reduces our international competitiveness. It makes it harder for us to attract additional investment to strengthen growth and create more jobs. It makes it harder to attract the investment necessary to boost productivity, which is, of course, a necessary ingredient to increase real wages over time. Increasing the overall tax burden in the economy, in particular in the way that the Labor Party is proposing—targeting success, targeting aspiration—will lead to worse economic outcomes. There's absolutely no question about that. It will. It is designed to make it harder for business to be successful, which means it would make it harder for business to employ more Australians and to pay them better wages.

I've seen that the Labor Party has been quibbling with the assertions that have been made about the level of additional tax burden that Labor is proposing to impose on the economy. What we would say to the Labor Party is this: tell the Australian people. I'll tell you what we say you want to impose in terms of additional tax burden on the Australian economy. We say you want to increase taxes on small- and medium-sized businesses and businesses overall by $65 billion over the next 10 years. We say you want to increase the tax on housing through your negative gearing changes by $32 billion over the next 10 years. We say you want to increase taxes on housing, through your capital gains tax changes, by $13 billion over the next 10 years. We say you want to increase taxes on small business in particular, through your trust changes, by $15 billion over the next 10 years. We say you want to increase personal income tax by increasing the top marginal tax rate on a permanent basis by $22 billion over the next 10 years. And we say you want to increase taxes on superannuation by $20 billion over the next 10 years. You tell us which one of these numbers is wrong. More importantly, you tell the Australian people.