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

Today he had to front up and say to 10 million Australians, 'No, you are not getting any more tax relief.'

On this side of the House, for hardworking Australians, for those who are on low and middle incomes, this government has delivered in spades and will continue to do so. Last year, we had 415,000 new jobs created. The shadow Treasurer said five years ago that there was absolutely no way the coalition commitment of one million jobs within the first five years could be met. Well, no: we met it in 4½ years.

Mr Bowen interjecting—

Are you denying it? Is the shadow Treasurer denying that he—

Mr Bowen interjecting—

The shadow Treasurer believed us. Well, that's wonderful. If the shadow Treasurer believed in that commitment, he should walk out of this chamber, do a press conference and say, 'I always believed that the coalition government could deliver it,' but we know that he didn't. We know he said it was impossible, and last year 415,000 jobs were created. Every single one of those people—and let's remember, nearly 80 per cent of those jobs were full time—are better off because of the decisions made by this government.

Now we've got the shadow Treasurer saying to 10 million of them—4.4 million of them who will receive the full tax benefit of $530 and the remainder getting up to $530—that they don't deserve a tax cut. How on earth can the shadow Treasurer justify to those people that they don't deserve it, in addition to every other policy of this shadow Treasurer that seeks to hurt those individuals. This shadow Treasurer's capitulated on energy policy. He's capitulated to the 50 per cent Renewable Energy Target as outlined by the shadow environment minister, which is just going to see energy prices rise further and further and further.

This shadow Treasurer, sadly, has form. We knew the shadow Treasurer when he was in the Gillard-Rudd governments, as the worst immigration minister that this country's ever seen—even worse than the Manager of Opposition Business, which is a pretty high bar. But then he went on to become shadow Treasurer, and we all remember the very infamous coined term of the 'Bowen $16 billion black hole'. Now we've seen a black hole again. This week we saw a very, very big black hole from the shadow Treasurer. We remember a couple of months ago when the shadow Treasurer said: 'We have a very calibrated, well-thought-through policy on our retirees tax. It's very calibrated and it's very well thought through'. Then the shadow Treasurer, within a fortnight, backflipped. This well-thought-through, well-calibrated policy was changed on the run.

Now, again, we see that the shadow Treasurer's been caught out with a huge black hole in his costings. But we're used to that from him. We're used to that from when he was the Treasurer—$16 billion. Now we see it again, with $1.1 billion over the forward estimates. It isn't a surprise from this shadow Treasurer, because we see it time and time again. We say to the shadow Treasurer: come clean on your approach to small businesses. We know the shadow Treasurer refers to the owner of a small cafe that employs one or two people or a hairdresser that employs a couple of staff as a millionaire or billionaire who doesn't deserve a tax cut.

The shadow Treasurer is going to go to the next election and say: 'We're denying 10 million Australians a tax cut. We're going to reach our hands into the pockets of retirees, people who are on low incomes, and reduce their income by up to 25 per cent by denying them refunds on franking credits. We're going to increase taxes on small and medium businesses.'

Ms Butler interjecting—

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