Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Brisbane for his question, knowing that he has supported our efforts to provide legislated tax relief for 32,000 small- and medium-sized businesses in his electorate. That is a result of our policy. He knows, and the people of Brisbane know, that our economic plan is working. It is an economic plan that has created more than one million new jobs—around a thousand jobs a day; an economic plan that has delivered economic growth at 3.4 per cent through the year, at the fastest rate since the height of the mining boom and higher than any G7 country; an economic plan that has delivered the smallest budget deficit in a decade and put us on track to come back to balance a year earlier, in 2019-20; and an economic plan that has seen Australia rewarded with a AAA credit rating from the three leading agencies. On the weekend, I was in Indonesia for a meeting of G20 treasurers, the IMF and the World Bank, and Australia was lauded for its economic performance. The Secretary-General of the OECD praised Australia's strong economic growth and our sound macroeconomic policies.

Now, we're not complacent. We know the Australian economy doesn't run on autopilot and that the biggest threat to the Australian economy comes from those who are sitting opposite, because they have $200 billion of new taxes—taxes on your income, taxes on your savings, taxes on your property, taxes on your business, higher taxes on your electricity. But most punishing of all is the retirees' tax, because not only is it bad economic policy; it's philosophically flawed, punishing those who take responsibility for their own retirement. It is going to impact on 900,000 individuals, 200,000 self-managed super funds and 2,000 super funds, and the perverse income will see fewer people invest in Australian stocks, in Australian companies. It will see more people go on the pension and, of course, it will see higher income earners rewarded with their franking credits, but not low-income earners. Only the coalition will continue to grow the economy, only the coalition will continue to deliver jobs, and the Labor Party will continue to increase everyone's taxes.

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