Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks to the terrific member for Gilmore for her question. 64,000 taxpayers in Gilmore will get a tax cut. Eighty-seven per cent of them will get a bigger tax cut than before.

The last couple of weeks made two things really clear. From this Prime Minister, middle Australia gets a bigger tax cut; from that opposition leader, all they get is the usual slapstick negativity. Our tax cuts are all about providing more relief for more people to help with the cost of living. Every taxpayer gets a tax cut, and 84 per cent of them get a bigger tax cut. Ninety per cent of tax-paying women, 90 per cent of taxpayers under 35 and 90 per cent of taxpayers in the regions will all get a bigger tax cut.

Those opposite spent the best part of a couple of weeks lurching and searching for an excuse to dud those workers. They called for an election. They equated bigger tax cuts with Marxism. They said they'd fight us every step of the way. The Leader of the Opposition wanted to boycott Woolies and then he wanted to boycott middle Australia as well. But after all their posturing and all their politicking and puffing themselves up, up goes the little white flag. If they really believe the changes we're making are wrong, they'd vote against them and they'd roll them back—as the deputy leader said they would. Instead, to justify this humiliating capitulation, they say they're going to resurrect the old stage 3 tax cuts. The best they can come up with, in 2024, is to try and breathe life into the member for Cook's tax policy from five years ago.

There is a theme here. Last week, the shadow Treasurer accused me of having no plan to take this country back to what it was like during the Morrison government. I want to make it clear to the House that I took this as a compliment! When the rest of Australia watches the Nemesis documentary on the ABC, they see a cautionary tale. But when the member for Hume settles down in his pjs with a little hot chocky in an old 'back in black' mug to watch that documentary, he sees some kind of golden era.

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