Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

You might not understand what is here. If you do understand what is here, you are mad for supporting it. What they have done is all listed under the claim in the title of this document, Making our tax system more sustainable. The sustainable one is the one they have not costed. On page 17 of that document, they take the definition of a small business to one with a turnover of $10 million a year, in the first year. In the second year, it moves up again. It is not only in this document. It is here in the budget papers. The definition then goes up to $25 million. The definition of small business the year after that goes up to $50 million a year. Until we get to the 2022-23 income year, when the definition of small business is a business with a $1 billion turnover. As an attempt by those opposite to hide that they were providing a benefit for big business, it is probably best not to get to the billion dollar figure! By the time you get to the billion dollar figure, I reckon the public are on to you. If those opposite want to get a tax cut for their mates in big business, just own up to it, but do not claim that businesses with a $1 billion turnover are the little guy. Do not claim that those with a $1 billion turnover are the businesses where the person running the business knows every one of their employees by name. That is not a $1 billion turnover company. But that is a small business measure that those opposite backed last night.

You have a centrepiece of the budget and they do not know how much it costs. They describe it as a small business measure, but instead what they are delivering is the most extraordinary outcome for big business. With the company tax rate, the benefits go to the top end of town. With the personal income tax rate, the big benefits go to the highest income earners. Budgets are about choices, and every ordinary Australian family and every average Australian worker knows in making those choices those opposite have not chosen them—they have chosen themselves and their mates.

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