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

I thank the member for Bonner for his question. I know that he is working hard for the people of his electorate, and they are direct beneficiaries of the measures that we announced in last night's budget. For the people of Bonner, there are more than 17,000 small businesses that now will be able to access the $30,000 tax offset for small and medium sized businesses. There are, in the electorate of Bonner, more than 70,000 taxpayers who will now be able to get a tax cut as a result of the measures we have taken in this budget.

The people of Bonner, like the people of Queensland, have benefited from the increased investment in schools and hospital funding that we have put in place since coming to government. Last night's budget was the next stage of our economic plan. It set out how we can continue to see strong economic growth and low unemployment and continue to skill up our people for the jobs of today and for tomorrow. One hundred billion dollars of infrastructure is a major contribution to building the productive capacity of our economy so that people can get to work sooner and get home sooner as well, to be at the kitchen table.

We are doing all of this—investing in infrastructure, investing in skills, providing $158 billion of tax cuts—without increasing taxes. That is the difference between us and the Labor Party. The member for McMahon has the gall to tell the retirees of Australia that, if they don't like the Labor Party's policy, then they can vote against the Labor Party. We also saw last night, in the budget papers, that dwelling investment is expected to fall in 2019-20 by seven per cent. This is the worst possible time for Labor's housing taxes, because the Labor Party's housing taxes are designed to drive prices down and rents up. Independent economic modelling has showed that prices could fall by as much as 16 per cent and rents could go up by as much as 22 per cent as a result of Labor's policy.

So the contrast at the next election is very clear. We have a coalition that is delivering budget surpluses next year and into the forwards, as well as infrastructure, skills and lower taxes, and a Labor Party that is committed to higher taxes on retirees, on home owners, on small-business people, on people who go to work. There's only one choice at the next election. Vote for the coalition, because we are for lower taxes.

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