Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

And into the re-education camp, as the assistant minister reminds us. This is an extraordinary day to choose to have an MPI on company tax cuts from the Labor Party, because more and more of those opposite are crab-walking away from the Leader of the Opposition's company tax policy. First we had the member for Grayndler in his speech saying that Labor needed to adopt a different attitude towards business. Then we had the member for Bass, who refused to defend the Leader of the Opposition's policy. We have all the Labor MPs who've been backgrounding Simon Benson in News Limited. The company tax policy of the Leader of the Opposition is falling apart, and with good reason: because company tax cuts are important. Company tax cuts are important because they help the economy grow. The difference between those opposite and the government is that we've got a plan to grow the economy.

The benefit of company tax cuts to this country has been huge. When you combine the company tax cuts with the free trade agreements and the workplace relations changes, you have seen from our government the creation of a million jobs since we came to office in 2013. Last year there was record jobs growth—1,100 jobs every single day. You've seen record low welfare dependency, with only 15 per cent of Australians now on welfare. There has been record low growth in the size of government, too, under the Turnbull government. How has all this happened? This has happened because the economy is strong. How do you create an economy that's strong? You create an economy that's strong by having a plan for growth. Company tax cuts are absolutely vital to that plan for growth and to that economic plan.

We had from the Leader of the Opposition earlier in this debate a list of grievances. I don't doubt that those grievances are true, but we didn't have any solutions to the grievances. We didn't have any solutions that would provide growth and revenue for all the spending programs he wants. Instead, we have a plan from the opposition for $200 billion worth of new taxes, but no plan for growing the economy. Without economic growth, there are no jobs. Without economic growth, there's no money to pay for the schools, the hospitals, the pensions, the NDIS, the child care and all the other spending promises they're interested in. Without economic growth, there's no way of paying for spending on a whole range of things.

How do you create economic growth? You create economic growth by backing the people that are having a go—by backing the small, medium and large businesses of Australia who employ people, who take a risk, who try and build a better country and a better economy by taking the risk, and who are creating jobs every single day through what they're doing. Having to pay less tax means that they can take some of the revenue they would have given to the taxman and put it into somebody's job, put it into the expansion of their business or put it into research and development. This is how you grow the economy.

Those ideas seem to have completely escaped those opposite. You can't grow the economy by taxing people. You can only grow the economy by getting off the backs of people who've had a go. The Leader of the Opposition thinks that anyone who runs a business with a turnover of $2,000,001 is running a big business and doesn't deserve a tax cut. Nothing could be further from the truth. I've got 15,000 small businesses in my electorate, and they talk to me about the benefit of the company tax cuts. It's the benefit of being able to give someone a job, the benefit of being able to invest in new plant and equipment, the chance to expand their operation and the chance to expand into new markets.

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