Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

This MPI from the shadow Treasurer refers to the failures of this budget. If he wants to talk about failures, he doesn't need to look any further than the member for Lilley behind him, ably assisted by the member for Rankin. Indeed, he only has to look at his own short and lamentable period as Treasurer to talk about failures. We all recall the well-coined phrase, 'Bowen's black hole'—$16 billion which just disappeared. If the shadow Treasurer wants to talk about failures, he just has to look behind him. Look at his mentor, the member for Lilley, and the six deficits we had when we were promised four surpluses.

Moving on from this pretty shabby MPI, let's look at the budget last night. As someone who worked with the Treasurer on this, I was very pleased to see the reaction to our personal income tax plan. The shadow Treasurer scoffs and laughs at people who will save $10 a week, the 4.4 million Australians who will save about $10 a week—or perhaps at the other 5.5 million Australians who will save some tax starting from 1 July; he might scoff at them—but that is real money in people's pockets. That is real money that's going to help them with their budgets today. But to deal with the longer-term issues and our over-reliance on personal income tax, step two and step three of our personal income tax plan are crucially important. The shadow Treasurer has been squirming all question time, trying to find a way of getting out of supporting these personal income tax cuts. Just fess up: you don't want to support personal income tax cuts. You don't want to support the way we are dealing with bracket creep in step two of the tax plan. You don't want to stop millions of Australians from moving into a higher tax bracket of 37 per cent. After the personal income tax plan is legislated, we know that 94 per cent of Australians will never move above the 32.5 per cent tax bracket—32.5 per cent. For millions of Australians, they won't have to worry about taking on those extra hours, or getting that happy and unexpected promotion that leads to a pay rise pushing them into a higher tax bracket.

The thing that separates our two parties—and the Treasurer spoke a bit about it in question time—is the view of the shadow Treasurer and the Labor Party that, somehow, money that you earn as an individual belongs to the government first and what they generously bestow upon you is something you should be very grateful for, as opposed to the view of the coalition: we believe it's your money and we've got to have a very good reason for taking it off you.

Let's take it to the next election. The shadow Treasurer spoke about the next election. At the next election we will be speaking about personal income tax cuts for middle-income Australians. He is trying to find a reason to squirm out of it. You don't need a reason, shadow Treasurer. You don't need an excuse to squirm out of it. Just be proud and say you don't want to support personal income tax reductions. Just be proud. Don't try and find those faux excuses to squirm your way out of it because you are too ashamed to talk about it. Just be proud that you believe in higher taxes because you've lost the argument, sadly, with your leader. You have lost the argument with the left wing of your party who have basically said, 'No, we want higher taxes and higher spending.'

The other thing we did in the budget wasn't just about backing individuals and backing those who want to aspire for more and to work hard; we are also backing businesses. The shadow Treasurer's questions in question time are very interesting, because his questions in question time indicated that they are planning on reversing our small business tax cuts. Apparently, if you are a small cafe with half a dozen employees, a retail shop with half a dozen employees or a small manufacturer with only a couple of employees, you're somehow going to be treated as an Apple or a Google—a big, bad corporate, as the Labor Party would refer to them. Shadow Treasurer, you can go to the next election promising to wind back those tax cuts for small businesses, because we know small family enterprises reinvest everything that they save in their businesses. They grow their businesses and invest in their staff. Often they treat their staff more like family members than employees. The shadow Treasurer should be very loud and proud that he is going to go to the election saying: 'No, we don't want personal income tax cuts for middle income earners. We want to reverse the tax cuts that have already been legislated in relation to small businesses.' Don't try and find these shabby excuses to vote against them or to reverse these tax cuts; just be proud about what you're doing. The Australian people will punish you for it, no doubt.

The other aspect of this year's budget is our early return to budget balance. The significance of this is the contrast to the Labor Party. It's the contrast to the four years of surpluses that the former Treasurer announced. I think we know who might have written that line: it was the member for Rankin. The member for Rankin must have written that line, because we know he was the key man. The member for Rankin was the member for Lilley's key man in his office. He must have had a hand in that line: 'The four years of surpluses that I announce tonight'. If that happened anywhere else, you'd get turfed out of the party, but the Labor Party put them on the front bench. To go around saying you were Wayne Swan's key advisor in those outstanding glory years of the Swan treasurership gets you a seat on the front bench. That's a pretty good deal.

A different approach was outlined last night: underpromising and overdelivering. That's very important. The Labor Party overpromised. We all remember the $16 billion that was going to be raised by the resource super profit tax. Was that another idea from the member for Rankin? The resource super profit tax then morphed into the MRRT, which didn't raise anywhere near the $16 billion that it was supposed to raise and was going to be spent. This is the credibility of the party that we're dealing with here. A different approach was outlined last night—a different approach where we return to surplus a year early, where we have sober predictions of growth and where we have a sober approach to all projections in the budget. That's enabled us, for the last six budget MYEFO updates to meet or exceed our targets or to meet or exceed our projections. That's how you do it, shadow Treasurer. Last night, I know it was very, very difficult for you because the scene has been set for a very high tax approach, an anti-small-business approach, an anti-medium-income-earner approach—

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