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

I thank the honourable member for her question. The member for Gilmore was with me when I visited Bisalloy last week. She knows full well that so many of her constituents work at Bisalloy or BlueScope, and they know exactly how important the encouragement we're providing to business is, with more than 420,000 jobs created over the last 12 months and 17 consecutive months of jobs growth—both records. But we want to see even more jobs, and we want those jobs and skills to stay in Australia, rather than going overseas. We risk all of this without policies that support business and encourage investment because, as we know, investment creates jobs. Investment drives productivity. Investment drives the productivity that delivers higher wages, and that's why we're supporting both.

Businesses will only increase investment where they have an incentive to do so, and that's why we need to have a competitive tax rate for all businesses. We've already seen this. As I said in my previous answer, for small and family businesses with up to $50 million in turnover, they are responding, they are investing, they are employing and they are paying more workers higher wages as a result. We want that same support for all businesses so that even more jobs can be created for Australians. The average full-time worker would have an extra $650 in their pockets each and every year as a result of our enterprise tax plan. We stand for lower taxes, because they create jobs and grow wages.

The Labor Party, on the other hand, do not have a single policy that would encourage one business to invest $1 or hire one employee. They have no policies at all. The Labor Party have none. They practice a form of fantasy economics where you can raise taxes and increase spending and then promise Australians they will somehow be better off. Australians can see through that. They know what happens if you raise an additional $200 billion in tax, which is what Labor is proposing—the equivalent of $8,000 for every, man woman and child in Australia. Labor claims that is going to encourage economic activity. We all know what higher taxes do: they discourage investment, they discourage employment and they reduce opportunities for Australians, when we owe it to Australians to be increasing them. Whichever way you look at it, the Labor Party is against investment and it's against jobs. (Time expired)

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