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

It's great to be able to speak in relation to this bill today, which encapsulates the budget as outlined by the Treasurer on budget night. The centrepiece and theme of this year's budget and the appropriation bill we're speaking about today, in essence, is about unleashing every individual, every small business, every company and, indeed, every Australian to aspire to be their very best and do more to, in the end, create prosperity for themselves, prosperity for our community and prosperity, ultimately, for our country.

The centrepiece of this bill is, of course, the Personal Income Tax Plan—much spoken about in this place over the last couple of weeks. In the end, this is a Personal Income Tax Plan consistent with our values that will make taxes lower—importantly lower—fairer and simpler. This seven-year plan will improve incentives to strive for success. Firstly, it will provide relief to over 10 million low- and middle-income earners. It's very important that the government ensure that the first beneficiaries of personal income taxes will be those low- and middle-income earners. Secondly, the government will also ensure that Australians are protected from the effects of bracket creep. Bracket creep, which is a technical term used far too often in this place, is in essence just an erosion of your salary and wages by ever-higher taxes. By tackling bracket creep, we ensure that those millions of Australians who are moving into ever-higher tax brackets ultimately get to keep more of their own money, ensuring that in essence and in effect they're not paying a higher rate of tax on the effective power of their dollar.

Thirdly, we want to simplify and flatten our entire personal income tax system. We have a very progressive tax system, a tax system where the top 23 per cent of taxpayers pay 65 per cent of all income tax. We've got a tax system where, in essence, 70 per cent of taxpayers carry almost the entire system. And, in our view, those individuals deserve some tax relief just as much as low- and middle-income earners do, too. So, whilst they're not eligible for that tax relief as early as those on low and middle incomes, we think that, in step 3 of the plan, by flattening the personal income tax system, we will be assisting them in a way that is tangible and in a way that in the end will fuel aspiration and entrepreneurialism and, again, ensure that people get to keep more of their own money. Much will be said about that. The Personal Income Tax Plan is the centrepiece of this appropriation bill. We think it's very important to ensure we meet the dual measures of providing that relief and fuelling further economic growth by improving confidence in the economy.

On the revenue side, we're better targeting the research and development tax incentive to ensure that it's fit for purpose, to ensure that it is there to provide genuine R&D activities in Australia with a tax concession. We have a package of measures to tackle the black economy, to expand the taxable payments reporting system, to ensure that we're limiting the amount of illicit tobacco from an excise perspective. We've got payment limits to ensure that the black economy is dampened to the greatest extent possible, and we've established a multiagency standing Black Economy Taskforce. There are a range of other tax integrity and compliance measures to address gaps in the tax rules, to ensure foreigners and multinational companies are paying an appropriate amount of tax, to promote fairness in the system and to ensure the ATO have the tools they need to enforce the integrity of our tax system.

We're also protecting Australians' super. There's a huge pool of money and we have taken a range of measures to ensure that individuals are not paying for insurance they don't need and to ensure that individuals are not paying fees on multiple accounts which are of no benefit to them. We are banning exit fees and reuniting small and inactive accounts. Those things are all part of this appropriation bill.

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