Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I have been very clear to the House. The cost of the program is $13.4 billion over the forward estimates and $140 billion over 10 years. That is exactly the practice observed by this government ever since we came to office when these questions have been posed. It wasn't a practice that was observed by those opposite. I have a simple position to put to the opposition: if you support lower, simpler and fairer taxes, vote for the bill. If you think 94 per cent of Australians should face a marginal tax rate of no more than 32½ cents then vote for the bill. If you think you should do something about bracket creep and not steal the hard-earned money away from Australians then vote for the bill. That's what they should do.

What we are hearing from the Labor Party are the usual excuses because they don't want to provide tax relief for hardworking Australians. They want to punish some Australians for working hard and then pretend they are helping others. What they have is not a tax plan; what they have is an envy plan. They have a bitterness plan. This country was not built on bitterness or envy but was built on opportunity, it was built on positivity, it was built on plans that actually built the country, not dragged people down. So I would invite the Labor Party to join the government and say, 'We support Australians keeping more of what they've earned.' But they won't. What they are happy to do is commit to expenditure from here to eternity. They'll vote for that every day of the week and they'll double down on it. Ask them to vote for tax relief for Australians for seven years and they scurry away; they can't do it. They can't do it because they don't believe in it, at the end of the day.

There is a very simple contrast between the Labor Party and the Liberal and National parties: we are for lower taxes; Labor are for higher taxes. In particular, Labor are for higher taxes on self-funded retirees. They're proposing to hit self-funded retirees $10.7 billion over the period of the budget and forward estimates. It is their single biggest tax. That is what Labor are counting on to pay for their election splurge, their reckless spending, their promises, which they will spray from one end of the country to the other. You simply need to know that the people they are going to slug to pay for it are the self-funded retirees and older Australians of this country. They'll have their hands in their pockets, they'll have their hands in their purses and they'll have their hands all over everything Australians have earned and worked hard for if they are ever given the opportunity to run this country again.

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