Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Prime Minister for the opportunity to respond on behalf of the government, Mr Speaker. If the member opposite actually understood something about this, he would know that at 19c—the compromise position put forward by the government—a backpacker will take home and put in their pocket just as much by working in Australia as they would by working in Canada, the United Kingdom or New Zealand. What those opposite are proposing, what they want, is a lower rate of tax for foreign workers and a higher rate of tax for small businesses in this country. So I ask those opposite why they want Australian small businesses to pay higher rates of tax than they do in New Zealand, in Korea, in Malaysia, in Singapore, in the United Kingdom and, ultimately, in the United States.

Those opposite come into this place every day, lecturing about the need for more revenue measures, and in the other place and in here they have voted to give foreign workers a tax cut at a cost to the Australian taxpayer of $500 million. That is the priority of those opposite. And this is the shadow Treasurer who said that it is a Labor thing to have the ambition of reducing company tax—'It's a Labor thing.' Well, it is not a Labor thing when they have to come into this place and vote for it. What they would rather do is vote for tax cuts for foreign workers.

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