Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

There are 2.2 million small businesses that contribute some $378 billion to the Australian economy annually. They employ 4.7 million people, around 44 per cent of the Australian workforce. As this Senate well knows, we successfully legislated to deliver tax cuts for those businesses, as well as extending the instant asset write-off. This Senate also well knows that those opposite have a policy to increase the rate of tax in the future relative to what this parliament has already legislated.

In the next election campaign, next year, those opposite will have to line up and explain to hundreds of thousands of Australian households and to thousands of Australian small businesses that they intend to make them pay more taxes. They intend for those businesses and those households to pay higher levels of tax in the future. We know the Labor Party's company tax policy, and that is to put the rate back up for small businesses in Australia. That will hurt jobs growth in the future.