David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Here we are about lower tax; over there they are about higher tax. Nowhere is it more obvious than in relation to these small and medium sized business tax cuts that have recently gone through the parliament. Small and medium sized businesses with revenues of between $2 million and $50 million will receive substantial tax reductions under the legislation that has gone through the parliament that those opposite voted against. But they opposed those tax reductions so, presumably, if they get into government, they will unwind them. What does that actually mean? It means a $25.4 billion tax increase: those opposite propose for small and medium sized businesses in Australia a $25.4 billion tax increase.

They like to talk about multinationals and the big end of town, mustering as much menace as they can in that statement, but these are businesses of $2 million to $50 million—small businesses, medium sized businesses. There are about 130,000 of them that benefit through the government's policy and, if you take that $25 billion tax reduction over the decade, how much does that work out at on average for each of those small and medium sized businesses? On average, it is about $224,000. If those opposite are saying that they do not support the legislated changes for small and medium sized businesses with $2 million or more turnover, which have already passed through the parliament, it adds up to $25 billion in tax savings for those businesses. There are 113,000 of those businesses, so an average is $224,000 more tax for small and medium sized Australian businesses relative to the legislation that is actually law now because it is through the parliament. That is a massive contrast.

The other thing that those opposite want to do is increase the tax on investment in Australia by 50 per cent for everything. They want to increase capital gains tax by 50 per cent for everything, and this is because of their so-called housing affordability policy designed, supposedly, to address the housing affordability issue in Sydney and Melbourne.

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