Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

They seem to forget that they were imposing unfair taxes and they now sit there, claiming credibility that they are the greatest economic managers the world has ever seen. Still paying back the prepayments of the taxes with regard to the mining taxes is what we are doing. The tax also proved to be complex and expensive to operate. It cost more than $50 million to set up, with estimated running costs of $20 million a year, and advertising came to nearly $40 million. And we cannot forget that other tax which was anti Western Australia, the carbon tax. Again, this was a very unfair tax and we got rid of it. When the coalition came into government we got rid of those unfair taxes that everyone in Australia knew were unfair. Yet, here they are telling us we are imposing unfair taxes.

It is the coalition government that is securing our nation's future. We are the government that has delivered a budget that secures the essential services that Australian's rely on, a budget that delivers fairness in ensuring our education and disability services are paid for, and a budget that is supporting economic growth and generating opportunities. I would like to run through some of the ways this government is doing just that. In fact, just today this House is debating our decision to extend the $20,000 instant asset write-off for small businesses by 12 months. We will also pass tax cuts for businesses with turnovers of up to $50 million, legislating the entirety of the small- and medium-business tax cut we promised to deliver under our Enterprise Tax Plan. This effectively allows businesses to grow, invest and employ more Australians, which I am sure every person in this House would support. Our tax cuts will affect 3.2 million small and medium Aussie businesses. If anyone can call that an unfair tax or say that it is imposing taxes on the business sector, they are getting it totally wrong.

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