Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Minister for Revenue and Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Personal Income Tax Plan) Bill 2018 will deliver lower, fairer and simpler taxes. We in the Liberal-National coalition believe that the government, after guaranteeing the essentials and living within its means, should keep taxes lower, simpler and fairer. We have to remember that this is the money of every Australian. It is not the government's money. Australians have earned it, they have worked hard for it and they know best how to spend it. By providing tax relief to low- and middle-income earners first, we are helping people manage household budget pressures. By protecting against bracket creep, we are providing rewards for work so that people can get ahead, take on some extra overtime or take a promotion to provide for their families, to pursue their aspirations and to keep more of their hard-earned pay. By simplifying and flattening the tax system, we are providing certainty for most working Australians that they will face the same tax rate over their working life.

This is, of course, a significant structural reform. Ninety-four per cent of taxpayers will pay no more than 32½c in tax in 2024-25. This has the impact of knocking out bracket creep, which has been the bane of many a hardworking Australian. Our tax plan not only lowers their tax burden but also will dampen incentives to find ways to avoid tax. The government's seven-year plan is affordable and fiscally responsible, as outlined in the budget, and it will provide certainty to workers. Those opposite talk about certainty. How can we be certain that this seven-year tax plan will ever eventuate? Well, it's very simple: it is one vote here in the House of Representatives and one vote in the Senate, and then that certainty is delivered.

We on this side believe in tax integrity. Labor, unfortunately, believes in higher taxes. Labor is not for tax relief. They are playing politics—punishment politics, pitting one Australian against another in a zero-sum game of class envy, and fighting over the pie rather than growing the pie. Labor is for higher taxes, full stop. Labor is part of the high-tax club. Labor has already announced more than $200 billion worth of taxes in opposition, and they keep coming. We've had the housing tax, the savings tax and the family business tax, and now we have the retirees tax.

Our Personal Income Tax Plan will provide tax relief for low-and middle-income earners. A family with two working parents on the average full-time wage will receive tax relief of more than $1,000 under our plan for 2018-19. Under Labor's plan middle-income earners will be hit by Labor's policies to abolish negative gearing. As the latest 2015-16 tax data shows, around 62 per cent of individuals who have a net rental loss have taxable income of less than $80,000. From the top 10 occupations that negatively gear, teachers were the second-biggest users of negative gearing. Teachers, despite all of the rhetoric from Mr Shorten, are not the big end of town. Mr Shorten wants to permanently increase—

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