Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

It's always interesting getting a lecture from the failed former immigration minister here, the shadow Treasurer, who doesn't exactly have a great record as a minister. And it's one that I know he's very embarrassed about—and quite rightly embarrassed about, that period as immigration minister. Labor thinks that you address inequality by shaking down hardworking Australians even more. That's how they think you address inequality: you tax hard work; you tax aspiration more. Every single policy that the Labor Party think they so heroically come out with is an increased tax, but they're very careful to say to the Australian public, 'It's not you; we're hitting these guys.' And the guys they always end up hitting are the people in small business. Firstly, we know they are opposing corporate tax cuts. Not since the early eighties have we had to argue about the efficacy, the efficiency and the impact on investment of reducing taxes. Now we've turned the clock back 30 years and we again have to argue why these things are important. But Labor does not have one policy to increase the investment into this country.

Now, if you look at the average tax rate in the OECD, ours is far higher. And we know that in 10 years' time, when our Enterprise Tax Plan is in completion, the average OECD tax rate will be even lower than ours. We know that in the US perhaps one area the Republican Party agree on is their 15 per cent corporate tax rate. We know that the UK has a corporate tax rate south of 20 per cent. We even have the French socialist government reducing their corporate tax rate. Yet the Labor Party's vision is one of higher taxes.

They have also opposed our reduction of taxes for small businesses that have a turnover of between $2 million and $10 million. Now, anybody knows—and I'm sure members opposite understand from visiting small businesses that have a turnover of between $2 and $10 million, many of which have only a handful of employees—that these are not big, multinational, rich organisations. Why would the Labor Party deny them a tax cut? Presumably the Labor Party will go to the next election telling small businesses that they will increase their tax rates. Now, that's a very heroic position that I don't think small businesses will accept.

The shadow Treasurer lauds Labor's housing tax. Their housing tax has been spoken about ad nauseam. We know Labor's policy will not result in one additional house being built. It will not help one first home buyer get into the market. We know Labor's housing tax will increase rents. We on this side of the House will speak for the 30 per cent of people in the rental market. We know that the Labor Party do not care about the 30 per cent of people who rent, but, if you shake down landlords just like Labor are trying to shake down anybody who aspires to doing better, there's only one place that a landlord can go to get that money, and that's the tenant—and the tenant has to pay higher rent. This we know. This is not theoretical. We saw this in the eighties. If Labor's negative gearing policy was such a success, why was it abjectly rejected and abandoned by none other than the Keating government? So we know that Labor's answer to everything is higher taxes—higher taxes.

On top of the increase in the headline tax rate for small businesses, now we see another attack on small businesses, and that's on those small businesses who utilise a trust structure. The Labor Party have lauded the fact that they are supposedly taking on the work of the Howard government. So they would have been very embarrassed by the comments from the author of the Howard government's review, John Ralph—after Chris Bowen, the shadow Treasurer, triumphantly claimed that he followed through with that work—when John Ralph attacked these changes to trusts as just 'more tax' and said that, when combined with Labor's other tax increase proposals, they would 'have a negative impact on the growth of the economy'. So the very person that the shadow Treasurer points to as supporting his so-called policy on trusts has said it's just another tax and it will reduce investment in small businesses—which we know impacts the vast majority of working Australians.

There are 6½ million Australians who work in small businesses, and every dollar you take out of a small business, every dollar that the shadow Treasurer takes out of a small business, is one dollar less that can be invested in that small business, one employee less that that small business can take on and one dollar less that they can provide in income for their employees.

The Labor Party don't have a single policy to increase investment in this economy. They have absolutely no policies to do that. Their equality argument is all about shaking down hardworking Australians for more and more money.

The Labor Party might want to hear some facts. We have a very progressive tax system and we have one of the most targeted social welfare systems in the world. The top 40 per cent of taxpayers pay 92 per cent of the income tax. Forty per cent of Australians are carrying nearly the entire personal income tax burden, and this shadow Treasurer thinks that you can shake them down for a bit more money. That's all he thinks he can do. He doesn't want to make any hard decisions. He can't say no to all of the spending by his shadow ministers every time they come to him, presumably, with a proposal to spend more money. He probably wants to say no, but he's told he can't, and that just shows how little authority this shadow Treasurer has. So, in order to chase ever more spending, they have to find more people that they can shake down for a bit more money. That's what the Labor Party approach here is.

We don't think those 40 per cent of Australians who already pay 92 per cent of personal income tax should be hit harder by the Labor Party. As we know, untold numbers of those Australians work in small businesses. They rely on investment in small business. I know the Labor Party are only interested in large unions and large business doing cosy little deals with each other, but, on this side of the House, through our small business minister, we stand up for small businesses. We absolutely stand up for small businesses.

The Labor Party will have to explain to 270,000 small businesses: why are those 270,000 small businesses with a family trust being labelled as tax avoiders by this grubby stunt by the Labor Party? These are hardworking Australians: 270,000 businesses who employ Australians; 270,000 businesspeople who put their hard earned on the line, who probably mortgage their own home to expand and grow and build their business. The Labor Party's got a lot to explain with this so-called tax grab. John Ralph has called it a tax grab. John Ralph has belled the cat and said this will have a negative impact on investment and growth in this country. It seems self-evident. It seems self-evident, but the shadow Treasurer has had his own words spoken back at him.

We said four things in the budget, primarily. We wanted to grow the economy to support more and better-paid jobs. That is absolutely something that has informed every decision that this government has made. We wanted to guarantee essential services. The way you guarantee essential services is by having a well-targeted tax system and a well-targeted social welfare system. We know the top 40 per cent of individuals carry most of that system by paying 92 per cent of the tax. They quite rightly should, because we do need to fund those services, but we don't think that they can get shaken down for a bit more money.

We also think that we need to put downward pressure on costs of living, including electricity costs. That is the debate that the Labor Party doesn't want to go near, but electricity prices have an impact on every single business in this country and every single small business—particularly small businesses in manufacturing. That is going to be the big challenge for our country. I don't have any confidence that the Labor Party is going to be able to rise to the occasion, particularly not when we've got hard green members of the Left who control so much of the Labor Party—but that is going to be the untold story.

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