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

( I know that the Labor Party, as part of its talking points, perpetuates the misleading statement that $65 billion is the cost of tax cuts to big business. You know that is not true. The Senate voted last year to pass income tax cuts for small- and medium-size businesses with a turnover of up to $50 million, which represents $30 billion of that cost. That is point No. 1 Point No. 2 is that, since the Senate did that, wages growth has picked up. As at the most recent update, wages growth is running at about 2.1 per cent. We want it to strengthen further, which is why we need to pass the remainder of our plan. Do you know what else has happened? Company tax receipts are actually picking up as well. If you look at the monthly financial statements that I released on Friday, you will see that, compared to the MYEFO, in the first two months of this year, company tax receipts were $3 billion higher than what was anticipated.

Senator Wong interjecting—

Now Senator Wong says that it was a really conservative MYEFO. We were told that it was overly optimistic. We were told that all these figures were overly optimistic. You keep changing your tune, according to what— (Time expired)