Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

Do you like that? You're not too bad, either. In the member for Wills' electorate, 78,000 taxpayers will get a tax cut on 1 July, and that includes childcare workers. A childcare worker on, say, $40,000 a year will get a $654 tax cut. Under the Liberal Party they would have got zero. A maintenance worker at the local primary school on $50,000 will get a tax cut of $929 a year. An admin worker at the local high school, doing a job like my mum did for 30 years, on 70 grand will get a tax cut of $1,429 a year. A teacher—and I hope all of us in this place agree there's no more important job than teaching—on $80,000 a year will get a tax cut of $1,679 a year, double what they would have got under those opposite. They're just some of the 13 million Australians who'll get a tax cut on 1 July—every taxpayer getting a tax cut.

What does it mean for childcare workers or teachers? Mr Speaker, let me give you an example. A high school teacher in Sydney said: 'These tax changes mean I'll see more of what I work hard to earn in my bank account. As someone in their 20s, I'll probably put that towards a house deposit.' A childcare worker in Perth said: 'I'm looking forward to approximately 800 bucks this year, which will help me with car insurance as well as schoolbooks and everything. It's a big improvement.' For the average Aussie worker it means a tax cut of about 21 grand over the next decade. That's real money. That's real help.

Today we've got the opposition leader saying that it would be better if we didn't make these changes. Understand what that means, Mr Speaker. It means the opposition are saying it would be better if childcare workers didn't get a bigger tax cut; that it would be better if teachers didn't get a bigger tax cut; that a childcare worker on 40 grand a year—under their model—shouldn't get a tax cut at all. These are the people who care for our kids, who teach our kids, who are teaching the next generation of Aussies, and those opposite are saying it would be better if they didn't get a bigger tax cut. It tells you everything you need to know about the modern Liberal Party. They don't think that people on low incomes should get an extra buck an hour, they don't think childcare workers should get a bigger tax cut and they don't think teachers should get a bigger tax cut. They don't think 11 million Australians deserve a bigger tax cut. (Time expired)

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