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

Labor actually has this completely wrong. If anyone in Australia has made the case day in, day out for two years now that a more competitive business tax rate will help drive more investment, create more jobs and drive stronger wages growth, it's me. Of course a lower company tax rate will drive additional investment, help us create more jobs and lead to stronger wages growth. At no time has anybody made that case more passionately and more energetically than me, including this morning. So you are completely and utterly misrepresenting the position that I've put. The Labor Party is just trying to create a distraction. The Labor Party has decided today to 100 per cent endorse the first three years of our Ten Year Enterprise Tax Plan. After having fought tooth and nail to stop us from lowering the business tax rate for businesses with a turnover of up to $50 million, you have now rolled over and accepted that that is good policy. Why is it good policy? It is because, if you leave businesses with more of their own money, they are able to invest more in their future growth and expansion, which means that they can hire more people. As they hire more people and there is more competition for workers, there will be stronger wages growth. That is economics 101. That is fundamental economic orthodoxy. The reason we are concerned about your position is that, if you make it harder for business to be successful, if you put business in Australia at a disadvantage compared to business in other parts of the world, there will be less investment, fewer jobs and lower wages, whereas we want more investment, more jobs and higher wages, and that is what our business tax cuts will deliver.