Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Few people in this chamber have been as eloquent in their support for cutting business taxes as the member for McMahon. He even wrote a book about it. He wrote a book about it, and right now, as we all know, he goes around corporate Australia trying to be the business-friendly face of the Labor Party, saying: 'Don't worry. We understand the need to be competitive. We understand it, and just wait. Just wait.' And of course he's had his coat-tails pulled by the left of the Labor Party because they are committed to higher business taxes, they're committed to higher taxes, and the result of that is making Australia uncompetitive.

Let's not kid ourselves. We've got to look at this in a clear-eyed way. Do we really think Australia will effectively compete for capital with the highest rate of company tax in the OECD?

The Labor Party may say in an ideal world, from their point of view, that company taxes should be higher. Well, we don't live in that fantasy world. We live in a world which is intensely competitive, and we have to fight for every dollar of investment and every single job. That's what my government does every day. That's why we have supported the policies that enabled 403,000 jobs last year.

I have just come from Washington, where I met with the National Governors Association. I can tell you that there are many people in the United States who recognise the advantage we have secured for our exporters with our trade agreements and with the TPP 11. If you are in the beef cattle industry in America, you are looking at paying substantially higher tariffs to get into the Japanese market than an Australian beef producer. They recognise that our government have been looking after our farmers and our exporters. Why have we done that? It's because we want to protect investment and jobs. We know that trade and open markets lead to investment, employment and lower taxes. Look at the reaction to President Trump's tax cuts in the United States. They are forecasting that it will add nearly one per cent to GDP. This is a massive adrenaline shot to their economy. They've done that.

What does the Labor Party want us to do? Nothing, as usual. They want us to abandon the TPP and abandon our exporters. They want us to abandon our businesses by not competing. We're for jobs. We're for investment. (Time expired)

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