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

I thank the member for Herbert. I thank him for his service to Australia in the Australian Defence Force. He is somebody who was injured in Afghanistan, someone who has worn the uniform with pride and someone who represents Australia largest garrison city, Townsville, and supports our veterans. We say thank you to the member for Herbert.

I thank him for this question. He recognises that this side of the House, the coalition—Liberals and Nationals—are committed to creating more jobs and driving down taxes. When we came to government, unemployment was 5.7 per cent. Today it's 4.6 per cent, and 1.4 million additional jobs have been created since we came to government. When it comes to lower taxes, we have legislated through the parliament around $300 billion of income tax cuts. That means that, if you're a teacher in Townsville on $60,000, you are paying $6,480 less tax under our government as a result of the measures that we have passed on this side of the House. If you're a small business with a turnover of less than $50 million, you've seen your tax come down to 25 per cent, from 30 per cent.

Immediate expensing and the loss carry-back measures have seen an increase in investment across the country. In terms of machinery and equipment investment, we've seen about a 20 per cent increase as a result of the business investment incentives that we have supported on this side of the House. So we're delivering lower taxes, and we're delivering more jobs.

On top of that, we're investing in infrastructure—in programs like Snowy 2.0, which is going to support around 5,000 jobs; in programs like the Western Sydney airport, which will support around 11,000 jobs; and in other programs, like the Inland Rail, which will support more than 20,000 jobs. They are some very important infrastructure projects, which are creating jobs and driving up productivity.

I'm asked if there are any other alternative policies to our approach to create more jobs and lower taxes. We know that those opposite support higher taxes, because they went to the last election with $387 billion of higher taxes. The member for McMahon told Australians, 'If you don't like our policies, don't vote for us,' and they took him literally. Now we know the member for Rankin is cooking up a tax on family businesses—300,000 of them. It's a $27 billion tax on family businesses that will leave businesses worse off as a result of Labor's addiction to higher taxes. We on this side of the House are committed to creating more jobs and lowering taxes for all Australians.

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