David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will say just a few brief words following Senator Cormann's speech. I think it would be true to say that we are all here in order to increase the standard of living of Australians. We measure the standard of living in terms of getting a job and how much we get paid for that job. Where we differ, of course, is in how to achieve that increase in standard of living. Quite a lot of people in this chamber are preoccupied with how to slice up the pie. Others, myself included, are concerned about creating a bigger pie. I've had this discussion with quite a lot of Labor people as well, and within Labor that same debate occurs. We are not going to create a bigger pie if all we argue about is big business and whether big business is being benefited. We have to remind ourselves, as Senator Cormann pointed out, that all big businesses start off as small businesses. What we would like is our Australian small businesses to become big businesses, but they won't if taxes are too high.

I want to address also the question of overseas shareholders in that context. Overseas shareholders certainly have some shares in our Australian companies, but Australian shareholders also have shares in overseas companies. Do we really want our shareholders in Australia to be investing in overseas companies because they are more profitable, more likely to become big companies? Tax cuts will simply keep the jobs we have. The tax cuts that are proposed are very small, in my opinion, and very slow to come in. They will do nothing more than keep the jobs we have, but they are absolutely essential if we are really looking at growing a bigger pie. In May, when we come back, I hope the tax cuts bill passes resoundingly—for jobs, for wage rises, to create a bigger pie and to raise the standard of living.