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

I thank the member for Longman for his question and acknowledge his experience running his own small business. Across his electorate, 65,000 people are getting tax relief as a result of policies supported by this side of the House, and there are 14,000 small businesses in the electorate of Longman that are eligible for the expanded instant asset write-off. One of those businesses is Taipan hoses, an irrigation company in Caboolture, which has used the expanded instant asset write-off to buy forklifts, stackers and hydraulic hose-testing equipment. That is just one example of thousands of examples across electorates in this country of businesses growing and investing in themselves in order to employ more Australians and to capitalise on the investment incentives that we have provided.

This side of the House believes in lower taxes. It is a key policy and philosophy of the coalition to encourage aspiration and reward efforts and allow Australians to keep more of what they earn. That includes the $300 billion of legislated income tax cuts that we have moved through this parliament, including a significant structural reform, abolishing a whole tax bracket for 37c in the dollar and the small-business tax cuts that now see a company tax cut of 25c in the dollar for businesses with a turnover of less than $50 million, at the lowest level in 50 years. That has seen these small businesses able to weather the storm of the pandemic. There is $5 billion of tax relief for small businesses this year and next.

Small and medium-sized businesses employed an additional 600,000 people between April last year and September this year. That is 1,300 a day. Our business investment incentives have helped see an increase in machinery and equipment sales, to be the strongest in 20 years. This is what lower taxes are helping to do across the Australian economy: create jobs, reward effort and encourage aspiration.

This is in stark contrast to those opposite, because those opposite don't believe in lower taxes. Those opposite only promise higher taxes. That's what they took to the Australian people—higher taxes on your superannuation, higher taxes on your retirement savings, higher taxes on your income and higher taxes on housing. That is what the Labor Party took to the Australian people. They said to the Australian people, 'If you don't like our policies, don't vote for us.' This time around, the Labor Party are being a lot more cagey. They are not coming clean with the Australian people. They are being a lot sneakier. The reality is— (Time expired)

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