Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the government's Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017, which will boost the Australian economy, creating prosperity and jobs for hardworking Australians. And I'm pleased to see the Minister for Small Business here in the chamber. It is his complete, utter and entire focus—isn't it, Minister?—that we will create more jobs for hardworking Australians and make sure that businesses can do their very best for our nation.

This tax plan is about encouraging employers to invest in and grow their businesses, which ensures greater job security for workers, more employment and higher wages growth. By reducing the company tax rate, our government will give businesses the certainty they need to plan for long-term growth in Australia. This will unlock so much untapped potential for private sector investment, allowing us to better compete globally.

A high corporate tax rate ultimately hurts hardworking Australians, with the companies' tax burden falling on employees through lower real wages growth. With a tough global economic environment, the task falls to the Liberal and National coalition government to implement ambitious policies to boost our nation's economy. We have already passed—earlier this year—the first part of the enterprise tax plan, which lowered the rate for 3.2 million small and medium-sized businesses, employing over 6.5 million Australians, but we cannot stop there. This bill will extend that tax reduction to the remainder of Australian businesses before the rate is dropped to a more internationally competitive rate of 25 per cent in 2026-27. This will be the lowest corporate tax rate since the mid-1960s. And don't we need that! Don't our businesses and our workers need that. Australia has gone from having the ninth-lowest corporate tax rate out of developed economies in 2001 to having the equal fifth-highest today. That's a very disappointing result, which is why we are working hard to turn it around. It means that if a business is looking at identical projects in two countries, each with exactly the same return on investment, it will choose a country other than Australia because of our higher corporate tax rate, which is not the outcome that we want. Indeed, Treasury modelling has found that our current tax system is a drag on the economy. Based on this, we know that a more efficient tax system would help grow the economy, creating opportunities for all Australians.

This is part of our national economic plan. Along with our enterprise tax plan, the coalition government are opening up new markets in our region for Australian exporters through comprehensive free trade agreements. This is particularly important for our farmers. My mum and dad are farmers, so I know full well how important is lowering tariffs and charges on our agricultural products overseas. Education also is one of our major exports from Australia. I have Flinders University right in the heart of my electorate of Boothby. It's a very fine educational institution, and it's trying hard to grow its share of the international student market. The government are also investing $70 billion in productivity-enhancing infrastructure across Australia. I have been very lucky to see the results of some of this with the Darlington upgrade and the extension of the Tonsley rail line up to Flinders University, which is a key part of Flinders University's plan to build new student accommodation, in particular, to attract more international students. We are also, as a government, delivering on a comprehensive 20-year defence industry plan, which is critical for my home state of South Australia, and we're implementing significant reforms to improve competition and choice for Australian consumers. We have secured record funding for our schools and our hospitals. We're protecting Australia's revenue base through some of the world's toughest anti-tax-avoidance laws—we're cracking down on those companies who try their hardest to not pay tax here in Australia.

These policies are already delivering for the Australian people. Recently we've seen the highest rate of jobs growth in 10 years, along with the highest business confidence in 10 years. It's no coincidence that the last time we saw such promising figures was when Mr Howard was in government, along with Treasurer Peter Costello, who provided fantastic economic leadership for our nation. We had some very fine National Party leaders at the same time as well, didn't we, Minister for Small Business?

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