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

The Labor Party just can't handle the fact that the Senate has voted in support of working families across Australia getting income tax relief. What Senator Hanson understands and what all of those crossbench senators who supported our proposed income tax relief for hardworking Australians understand is that somebody who earns $200,000 a year—that is, about seven times as much as somebody earning $30,000 a year—pays 30 times as much tax. So it's seven times as much revenue and 30 times as much tax.

Let me make another point. Under our reforms, after they've been fully legislated, the proportion of revenue generated from those Australians who earn so much that they are in our top income tax bracket will continue to increase from about 30 per cent now to 36 per cent by 2024-25. In fact, like how the top 20 per cent of income earners today are responsible for more than 60 per cent of income tax revenue generated in Australia, do you know what the situation will be at the end of 2024-25? You will still have 20 per cent of top income earners being responsible for about 60 per cent of the income tax revenue generated by government.

I know that the Labor Party hates aspiration. It hates it when people are trying to get ahead. It wants everybody to stay poor so they continue to vote Labor. The Labor Party wants to keep everybody equally poor. The Labor Party is for equality of outcome where everybody is equally poor. We are for equality of opportunity, where everybody has the opportunity to get ahead and where everybody will be better off as everybody strives to get as far ahead as they possibly can, because that lifts the whole economy and it lifts opportunity for all Australians.