Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It appears to me that Labor is stuck in the past. They do not understand the fundamentals of a modern economy, nor do they seem to understand that we have been through a global pandemic with an economic shock that has not been seen for more than a century. It's important for us to understand that we, on the side, get economics. We get finance. We understand that one of the best ways to increase wages is to decrease tax. That means that families, individuals, Australians can take home more pay. We understand this. This is fundamental to the way that we approach things, and we have been doing this from the very first time that I came to this House. I'm very proud, as a member of this 46th Parliament and a member of the Morrison government, that we have been supporting tax cuts from the get-go. We have been supporting them to ensure that Australians keep more of what they earn in their pocket.

We have legislated more than $320 billion in tax cuts, including more than $130 billion through stage 3 tax cuts. In fact, it was the very first thing that I voted on as a new member of parliament and something I'm enormously proud of. We've provided more than $40 billion in tax cuts, which have now flowed to more than 11 million Australians since the start of the pandemic. And around $12 billion in support will flow to more than 10 million Australians when taxpayers lodge their tax returns from 1 July 2022. More than $16.5 billion in tax cuts will flow to more than 12 million Australians in this next financial year because of our permanent tax cuts implemented in the 2020-21 budget. More than $93 billion in tax cuts will flow to more than 13 million Australians over the three years in the forward estimates.

What does this mean? What are the practical implications of these massive tax cuts for the Australian people? Someone who's on a median income and earning around $60,000 will be $7,980 better off by the end of this financial year compared with the 2013-14 income tax settings. An average full-time income earner on around $90,000 will be $8,655 better off by the end of the 2022-23 financial year compared with the 2013-14 income tax settings. So we understand the fundamentals that tax cuts mean Australians can take home more pay, and that means they have more spending power in the economy.

By contrast Labor took $387 billion of higher taxes to the 2019 election—$230 billion in higher personal income taxes, $57 billion in higher taxes for retirees, $31 billion in higher housing taxes, $27 billion in higher family business taxes and $34 billion in higher superannuation taxes. The people of Higgins told me that, right there, that was a tax on their aspiration—their aspiration for a better life for them, for a better life for their family, for a better life for the prosperity of Australia. And that's because Labor has a fundamentally different approach to finance and the economy. It's in their DNA. They think it's Labor's money. They don't understand that it's the taxpayer's money. The government is spending it on behalf of the taxpayer. That is an absolute fundamental.

Despite the biggest economic shock this country has faced in a century, we have been working hard to make sure that more people are in work. We understand the dignity of work and how important it is for people to have a job. As a result of the work that we have done through our measures through COVID, including JobKeeper, the cash flow boost, the instant asset write-off—all the things we have done to support businesses—we now have unemployment at four per cent, the equal lowest in 48 years. That is nearly two million more Australians in work today than when we came into government. This is something to be so enormously proud of, because this government understands fiscal responsibility, the economy and how to do the right thing at the right time at the right place in our history.

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