David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

What a fantastic day for the Australian people—a day where this government, supported by sensible crossbenchers, stood up and said: 'We are going to provide tax relief to hardworking Australians,' over the vehement opposition of those opposite, who did absolutely everything they could to try to stop ordinary Australians getting much needed tax relief.

The Leader of the Opposition sent out a tweet a couple of hours ago that said:

… Labor will replace Turnbull's tax cut for the top end of town.

He must therefore think that a drill technician is the top end of town, because, under the tax relief that we've just passed, a drill technician will be $2,200 a year better off. A labourer will be $718 a year better off. A miner will be $4,061 a year better off, and a forklift driver will be close to $4,000 a year better off. Those opposite talk about the top end of town and the big end of town and multinationals, but this expanding definition now includes labourers, miners, forklift drivers and drill technicians. Labor is standing in the way of tax relief for ordinary Australians, but today we overcame that absurd opposition. It is to the great credit of the Senate that it saw through the absurd opposition of those opposite.

These guys are all about tax. You can add it up now. Add it up. There are so many different lines to go to. We know that they want $70 billion in personal income tax to be paid by Australians. We know that, and that's what they did today. They voted for that. There is absolutely no wiggle room for them on that. They voted for ordinary Australians to pay $70 billion more in personal income tax. That's just a fact; that's what they voted for.

Also, they were sitting around six months or so ago and said: 'Where can we get some cash out of taxpayers very quickly to fund our extravagant spending plans? Where can we go to get some really big money quickly?' They said: 'You know where we can get a lot of money, billions of dollars a year, straightaway? Retirees.' So that's where they went. Now they're saying $45 billion a year should be taken from ordinary retirees who've done nothing wrong. All they've done is save for their future, provide for their retirement and invest in Australian companies, which is a good thing and something we should be seeking to encourage. And Labor said, 'This is a fantastic opportunity to go in there and rip out $45 billion from grandmas and grandfathers, people who have done the right thing in this nation.'

That's $70 billion in personal income tax and $45 billion from retirees. But what about small business? We hear a lot about multinationals and the big end of town, but, when tax relief was first provided for in the House, those opposite voted against tax relief for a business with $2 million of revenue. That's like a small suburban manufacturer—it might be a farming business, it might be a distributor of rural products in a small town. This is an important point: $2 million of revenue is not $2 million of profit. It's a very small business. It probably has a five per cent profit margin—it might make $100,000 a year—but Labor says it's some sort of multinational that's involved in nefarious activities and must not be provided any tax relief. That's an absolutely outrageous position.

Do you know why they do all this? They want to get more money from taxpayers for them. They want more money so that they can spend more money, and the proof of the pudding is in the history. You don't have to go back very far; it's actually very straightforward. You just have to go back to the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era, where average spending, real spending, under those opposite went up by four per cent per year on a budget of hundreds of billions of dollars. Under this government, it's 1.9 per cent, and that's a big difference. What that means is: we turned the corner on net debt. We expect to pay $30 billion off net debt in the next four years. Net debt has already peaked, and we are paying off Labor's debt legacy. It's very clear: they want to tax and tax and tax and tax and then they think, 'Do you know what? Let's tax some more.' That's what they do. They want $290 billion of taxes, they want to suppress aspiration and they don't want to support hardworking Australians. We do, and that's what we've done today.

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