Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I follow the speech of the member for Banks. It is the case that Labor do not support the big corporate tax cuts that this government is offering. We do not support the big banks and the big mining companies getting a massive tax cut when the average Australian hardworking family will pay more tax under this government's budget. Nonetheless, the proposal to cut corporate taxes will also take $65 billion out of the revenue measures for a government in the future. You talk about properly funding education, Medicare and health care. The budget simply cannot afford at this time to be cutting corporate taxes for the wealthiest multinational corporations, many of which send their profits overseas, whilst at the same time making the average worker and their family, on $60,000 a year, pay $325 a year more in tax. That is unfair. Of course, Labor will oppose reforms such as that.

Labor supports the changes in the Treasury Laws Amendment (2017 Enterprise Incentives No. 1) Bill 2017. This bill amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 and the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 to supplement the same-business test with the similar-business test. The similar-business test improves access to losses for companies and certain trusts that have changed ownership. The similar-business test also applies in working out whether a debt is written off as a bad debt or can be deducted in an income year and whether tax losses of listed widely held trusts can be used. The measure's origins are from Labor's commissioning in 2012 of the Business Tax Working Group and were raised again in submissions to the 'Re:think' tax discussion paper.

Schedule 2 of the bill amends the Income Tax Assessment Act to provide the choice to self-assess the effective life of certain intangible depreciating assets the taxpayer starts to hold on or after 1 July 2016 rather than using the statutory effective life currently specified under the law. The bill only applies to some assets—for example, some patents, copyrights and licences—and only applies to assets the taxpayer starts to hold on or after 1 July 2016. The new law also allows the taxpayer to recalculate the effective life in later income years if the effective life the taxpayer has been using is no longer accurate because of changed circumstances relating to the nature of the asset's use.

Under this government, we have seen a blow-out in the debt and deficit of the Commonwealth budget and, for the first time ever in Australia, the government has allowed gross debt to reach the dizzying heights of half a trillion dollars. This is an astounding figure and an indictment on the economic credentials of the Abbott-Turnbull government—particularly when you consider the pace at which they have managed to accumulate such a crippling debt. Despite the government's constant blame-shifting, the figures speak for themselves, and the figures show that the Abbott-Turnbull government has been racking up debt much faster than Labor did when we were in government. In fact, the coalition is racking up gross debt at $1.66 billion a month faster than Labor did when we were in government, and, when it comes to net debt, $511 million a month quicker. No matter which way you carve it, the numbers do not lie. Gross debt has grown by $381.7 million a week or $54.5 million a day quicker under the Liberals, and net debt has blown out by $118.2 million a week or $16.9 million a day faster on the Abbott-Turnbull government's watch.

In their May budget, the government confirmed their deficit for the coming 2017-18 year will be 10 times bigger than was predicted in their first budget, and gross debt equivalent to $20,000 for every man, woman and child in Australia. Compared to last year's budget, GDP growth is down, employment is down, wages growth is down and unemployment is up when you look at the forecasts of this government. And they are forecasting 100,000 fewer jobs.

Given the debt blow-out under the government, Labor cannot support an expanded corporate tax concession that costs the budget over $80 million in the forward estimates. Labor is also committed to ensuring that Australia is a country of innovation but one that lives within its means, and not long ago this was a bipartisan goal. In 2015, Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberals were waving their arms around, telling everyone who would listen that they were all about innovation, but no sooner had they begun to spruik their new-found path to becoming a more nimble and agile nation, they fell silent. The Prime Minister worked out and was advised that this new notion, this new message, was not working for him, and they quickly backed off on that message. This actually pleased some members of the government. It pleased some members on that side, with Tony Abbott quoted as saying: 'It's good that we are no longer talking about innovation and agility.'

Labor believes, as stated by the shadow minister for the digital economy and the future of work, that, if we are not talking about a smarter nation, we are not going to do the things that make us a smarter nation. For this reason, we would introduce the smart visa targeting science, medical, academic, research and technology skills that are in short supply here. We would allow internationally recognised specialists to collaborate with Australian universities, researchers, scientists and start-ups to help get the right balance. We want to make sure that the sector can move ahead whilst ensuring that Australians do not get left behind. The Abbott-Turnbull government, on the other hand, is a government that has slashed support for innovation, degraded science and research, and made deep cuts into programs that had been working successfully with Australian businesses to create more jobs.

In conclusion, we will not be supporting tax cuts for corporate businesses in Australia, particularly those big businesses that include the banks and big mining companies. We will seek to keep that revenue within the budget to properly fund education and to properly fund health, research and medical science, and to support Medicare. We will properly fund a TAFE system that delivers proper vocational education and training for Australians. We will support apprentices in our nation. We do support measures that do improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the tax system. That is why we do support some of the measures that have been adopted in relation to this series of bills. But we do not support moves that do take close to $80 million out of the budget on the basis of what we believe is a miscalculation. In light of the nation's current fiscal situation and the government's total inability to explain the case for schedule 2 of this bill, Labor will not be supporting it.

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