Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Minister for Revenue and Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question and for hosting me in his electorate only a few weeks ago. I would like to publicly congratulate him for the very fine work that he is doing, because he is delivering, and delivering more, for his constituents of Moore. He is delivering more tax relief for small, medium- and family-sized enterprises—around 15,000—in his electorate of Moore. And he is delivering more tax relief for those hardworking Australians, around 65,000 of them, who work hard every day and who will benefit from our personal income tax relief that has been legislated through both houses of this parliament. He understands that people work hard for their money and that they deserve to keep more of it, after we secure the essentials that government needs to deliver. Of course, part of the government's personal income tax plan is to ensure that nine out of 10 Australians will pay a marginal tax rate of no more than 32½c in the dollar.

The member asks me about alternative approaches. Well, he would probably be aware that the Leader of the Opposition does see things rather differently. He would like to saddle his fellow Australians with more than $200 billion of new taxes. He would like to slug the Australian economy with over $200 billion of new taxes. And why is this? Because not only is the Leader of the Opposition short on authenticity, as he made very clear through the hot mic incident in Queensland, but he is also short on ideas. He is short on ideas about how to build the economy, how to manage the Australian economy, how to grow the Australian economy. To him, economic policy simply means all of the multiple ways that he can reach in and pick your pocket.

Let's just take the mega retiree tax as just one example, because this is not just picking a pocket. This is a smash-and-grab on retirees right across the country—a $55 billion smash-and-grab on them—and it will punish around a million Australians, if he has his way. It will see the potential reduction for these Australians of around 30 per cent of their income, if they do not get their tax refunds. He does not want to encourage aspirational self-reliance In fact, he wants to see more people on welfare, not less, because he claims it's all about fairness. But these people are some of the most vulnerable people in this country. They are low-income earners. They cannot afford his tax slug, and he shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. (Time expired)

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