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

I thank the honourable member for her question. National accounts data show that over the past year private sector company profits grew by five per cent while compensation of employees grew by 4.8 per cent. So the premise of the honourable member's question is wrong. ABS business indicators data show over the past year aggregate wages and salaries, and company gross operating profits, both grew by 4.3 per cent. Even if we were to accept Labor's two-year time period, it ignores the fact that in the four years prior to that company profits have been declining. And, indeed, over the past six years compensation of employees has grown by 21.8 per cent while company profits grew by 13. 7 per cent. So the whole proposition that companies are making gigantic profits at an ever increasing rate and employees' wages are not keeping up is completely and utterly false, and the figures I've just quoted prove that very point.

The honourable members opposite are now in the business of denial on the question of tax and investment. They seem to now think that higher taxes are good for investment. If we go back to the member for Lilley's 2010 budget speech, that was a cracker. We all remember he was proposing to cut company tax by one per cent. He said:

Cutting the company tax rate will make Australia a more competitive destination for investment. Greater investment in capital will support higher productivity and real wage increases for Australian workers.

Then he went on to say:

Our key business tax reforms will increase real wages by around 1.1 per cent in the long run, putting an extra $450 a year into the pockets of workers on average earnings.

So what sort of fantasy economics is it where reducing company tax increases investment, increases productivity and increases wages if it's done by a Labor government, but doesn't if it's done by a Liberal-National coalition government? This is the way in which the Labor Party has shifted from being a party that used to recognise that the private sector was important for employment to being a party that—as the Leader of the Opposition said very clearly when he met the Business Council of Australia—has declared war on business, on aspiration, on investment, and thus on jobs. (Time expired)

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