Senate debates

Monday, 17 August 2026

Questions without Notice

Economy: Productivity

2:29 pm

Photo of Penny WongPenny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) | Hansard source

I'll take the interjection from Senator Hume. The senator for higher taxes is now interjecting to say, 'Lower taxes.' The incoherence of the economic policy of those opposite is quite remarkable, really. What I would say is that productivity, as the RBA has identified, has been a longstanding challenge in the economy. That's why it was such a focus in the budget. In the budget, we delivered the broadest productivity push for many decades, with 15 reforms in the budget which are all about trying to increase productivity, trying to attract and absorb more investment, making it quicker and easier to build and slashing compliance costs. These include the better targeted research and development tax incentive and the incentivising investment and innovation package, which had $3½ billion in new measures that lowered taxes for business. I'm happy to go on reducing red tape by about $10 billion a year— (Time expired)

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