Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Minister for Revenue and Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Corangamite for her question. She is a most passionate advocate on behalf of all of the small and medium-sized enterprises in her electorate of Corangamite. Like everyone on this side of the chamber, she has been working incredibly hard as a member of our government team to cut taxes for small and medium-sized enterprises because she understands that small and medium-sized enterprises are the true job drivers in our economy, employing more than 6.5 million Australians. She knows this first hand because she and I have visited a number of businesses in her electorate, including the Irrewarra bakery, which employs around 40 full-time employees and 10 part-time employees. It will get a company tax cut as a result of our tax cuts and will only be paying 27.5 per cent rather than 30 per cent. This is good news for those business owners who are looking to employ and who are looking to invest and grow their businesses.

But there are, I'm afraid to say, alternative approaches. Unfortunately, those opposite would seek to punish small and medium-sized enterprises. They will punish those enterprises because they will hike up their taxes. They will slug small and medium-sized enterprises 30 cents in the dollar rather than 27½ cents in the dollar. They will do that despite the fact that those small and medium-sized enterprises represent around 97 per cent of all business in this country. Labor will not stop there. They will also impose a minimum of 30 per cent tax on the distributions of discretionary trusts. It is just another Labor tax grab on 270,000 small businesses.

The Leader of the Opposition, who once supported trusts, needs to explain why it is that he'll provide an exemption to farm trusts but not to those small businesses who provide farmers with farm supplies such as fertilisers for crops and stock feed for livestock. They also have lumpy income, and yet he would seek to punish them.

This is in addition to the fact that Labor is raising taxes across all other areas, like personal income tax and like the fact that it will change negative gearing to hurt small investors like teachers and police officers, those people on average incomes. Unfortunately, Labor is all about the politics of envy, not the economics of opportunity. They will punish small and medium-sized enterprises. They will punish hardworking Australians. Those on this side of the House will represent them.

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