Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Watson mentions pensioners, of course. It was their government that brought in the carbon tax. The shadow Treasurer had a lot to say about pricing signals. We know that, more than any other party in Australian political history, it is the Labor Party that does not understand price signals. Why would you introduce a carbon tax at the world's highest price? It indicates how little you understand price signals. Why would you start a market mechanism with the world's highest price for your carbon tax? How fair was that to pensioners, I say to the member for Watson. How fair was introducing a carbon price at the world's highest price?

When we abolished the carbon tax, we kept those compensation measures, and pensioners are better off with the abolition of the carbon tax.

Ms Henderson interjecting—

The member for Corangamite asks what was fair to small business when you brought in the carbon tax. There was no consideration to the two million small businesses in this country that generate most of the employment, generate most of the growth in employment and keep Australians in jobs. Again there was no thought for small business. It is this government, of course, that brought in the reduction in company tax for small business, and that has from May this year led to growth in employment. Today we saw that 58,600 people have jobs who did not have jobs at the last figures, and I think that is fantastic. It goes to show that, when you do lower taxes, when you do get small business taxes down, if you could get company taxes down a bit, if you could reduce bracket creep and get average wage earners' taxes down and back into a sensible tax bracket, you would generate more jobs, wealth and prosperity. But it is not something that ever comes to mind when the Labor Party discusses tax

Tax is about one thing for the Australian Labor Party. Tax is about revenue. Tax is about taking more from people. It is only to fund ever-increasing government expenditure. They take and take and take from Australians' pockets. It is not the approach of this government, of course.

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