Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is, indeed, a pleasure to follow the honourable member for Lalor. I want to raise a few points about the issues she raised, quite dutifully, about low wage growth. Everyone knows that low wage growth is not just a problem that we are dealing with here in Australia; it is an economic issue that the globe is dealing with. The evidence for that is the evidence that the RBA governor gave the other day at the recent economics hearings in Melbourne, where he stated that very point—that low wage growth is an issue that is hampering all of the OECD countries, including Canada, America and those in Asia.

We have a plan for how we are going to address wage growth into the future. The reality is—to make it as simple as I can for Australians who are tuned in—the way a business is able pay their employees a greater percentage of the turnover is for those profits to become bigger. Now, let me give you 101 economics as to how profits don't become bigger: they don't become bigger when a Labor government sets out and says to the Australian community they are going to tax family trusts and take more money off small businesses.

I have a family trust. I'll put that on the record. I don't know how long I'll have it for, but I have a family trust. I am a transport operator. I've got a couple of trucks, and I used to employ 105 people. But the government thinks that I am the perfect hit to go after because I am some type of multimillionaire who can afford to pay more. If you take more money out of the family trusts, thinking that that's going to have a direct positive impact on wage growth, I struggle to understand what your economic rationale is with that. I'm struggling to understand how the Labor Party think if they put their hands in the pockets of small businesses around this country that somehow that is going to create a stimulus for our economy and for small business, not to mention the school teachers—

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