Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. As I was saying before I was interrupted, it was exactly three years ago today that the Leader of the Opposition said in this chamber:

I invite you to work with me on a fair—

note the word 'fair'—

and fiscally responsible plan to reduce the tax rate for Australian … business from 30 per cent to 25 per cent—not a 1½ per cent cut; a five per cent cut.

He used the word 'fair'. And other luminaries from the other side agree. One in particular recently wrote:

Small business represents aspiration.

Aspiration—that is what we believe over here. He went on:

It represents people who want to break away from a salaried job …

He then went on to argue for tax cuts. He said, 'A cut in company tax would be a good thing.' In fact, as we just heard, he went on to say it is a Labor thing. Of course, that member was the member for McMahon, in his book——which is worth a read, for all of you over there—called Hearts & Minds.

It was back in 2015 that I went to a tax reform summit hosted by the AFR. I asked if he accepted former Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson's statement that company tax falls hardest on workers. The member for McMahon told the summit:

It's a statement of fact, which I agree with.

That is fair: more for workers. So the member for McMahon used to think that reducing company tax rates was fair, but no longer, it seems.

In fact, what we have seen in recent years is a Labor Party that have lost their moral compass. They no longer believe in giving Australians a fair go. They have called out to the crass calls for pure equality, not fairness but equality, from people like Corbyn and Sanders. Indeed, we just heard an extraordinary speech from the shadow finance minister where he announced a tax increase after railing for four minutes about how bad higher taxes are. They are stoked by intellectuals like Piketty who want to tax aspiration and businesses into oblivion. In fact, this situation is so bad that you have a leader in the Labor Party who thinks it is fair to cut workers' penalty rates. We know that Bill Shorten's idea of fairness is to sell out workers—

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