Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I begin by congratulating the hardworking, diligent and committed member for Brisbane for bringing this motion forward. There are few people in this federal parliament that I think have demonstrated such a strong commitment not just to their constituents but also to the economic reform that this country needs.

To have a member like the member for Brisbane serve his community as strongly as he does, by bringing forward motions such as this, is so critical, because he understands that the foundations of this country do not come from fiddling bureaucrats and politicians in Canberra messing in people's lives and telling them how best to live them. He understands, like everybody on the coalition side, that the foundations of this great country are when people are empowered and encouraged to stand on their own two feet, to go off to work and enjoy the fruits of their labour and their hard work and initiative. When those people come together and form families, and are in a financial position to care and support each other, that's the foundation of a strong community. That's the foundation of a strong nation.

The motion that's before us is, simply, to highlight that we should always want families and hard workers to keep more of the money they earn in their pockets, rather than be sucked up to Canberra by the Australian Taxation Office and the commissioner to be spent by people in this place. It's not because we don't see a role for tax. There is a role. We all have to share and carry the cost of our society. But when people have more money in their pockets they have more choices about the future of this country and their own families. They have the incentives in place. One of the great liberal philosophers of the 20th century regularly spoke about what happens when people have more money in their pockets: they're yet to decide their own future and their own destiny.

Of course, we don't have all the information we need, to run this country, in Canberra. It might make sense that we live in a perfect society where politicians and bureaucrats and regulators pull levers to direct the nation in one country or another, but that's what we see in other societies. The strength of our country comes from the individual up. That's why cutting taxes, and particularly income tax, is so critical. Income tax is the clearest way the government comes and gouges out of people's pockets and takes their hard-earned money for the benefit of politicians and regulators.

That's why this government has been so clear in prioritising income tax relief for Aussie workers. We recognise that people have to pay their fair share of income tax. We understand that low-income earners already make a significant contribution and struggle to make ends meet. We understand that when they put their electricity bill on the kitchen table they look at their budget and try to figure out how they'll pay it off. That's why there are lower taxes for lower-income workers. We understand that for the millions of Australians who are part of the middle class, the middle-income earners, during those critical years of their lives when they're doing okay but they're trying to get ahead, the job of Canberra is not to thrust the hand of big government into their pockets and take as much out as they can. It's to turn around and pat them on the back and say, 'Well done, for your hard work and your initiative, because you are the backbone of this country.' That is why we have cut the income tax rate for middle-income earners.

Under the last budget of the coalition government you will see middle-income-earning Australians not paying more than a third of their income into income tax. More critically, higher-income earners will continue to pay a higher tax rate, to share the burden across the whole of the country. And, yes, those opposite have raised the challenge of making sure that government lives within its means. I completely agree with that agenda. In fact, what at every point has happened is that this coalition government has tried to match reducing tax rates on middle-income earners while also making sure that we minimise the deficit. Eventually we will return it to surplus, not in the way that they promised but in the way that we will deliver. We have gone down the economically responsible pathway—by encouraging initiative, encouraging award and encouraging economic opportunity.

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