Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Vocational Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, a second-year hairdressing apprentice earning only $22,000 per year has already lost $1,000 this year and will lose $2,700 over the next two years because of the Prime Minister's cut to the Tools For Your Trade payment. Why is the Prime Minister making it even harder for this apprentice to get ahead with a 15 per cent GST?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Regrettably what is on display is the sharp difference between the government and the opposition. On our side, we are getting on with the business of creating jobs and driving economic growth. On Labor's side, we have this not-especially-scary scare campaign. We have speaker after speaker standing up and accusing, insisting and stating, sometimes, that the government is committed to increasing the GST by 15 per cent.

The opposition know that there is no such proposal. The opposition know that we are looking openly at the taxation system and that we are endeavouring to see how we can make the tax system work better to create more jobs for all Australians, including our children and grandchildren, and yet they want us to rule this in and rule that out. They are constantly trying to narrow the scope of the inquiry. They know not just in their hearts but in their heads that the reality is that the inquiry we are undertaking and the work that we are doing is best done in the interests of all Australians if we consider everything, if we consider the whole gamut of proposals, if we consider the proposals of Chris Richardson and John Daley and everyone who has an idea, including the member for Fairfax, who is still the only person on that side of the chamber who has come up with an original idea.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Modelling reported in The Weekly Times showed that if the GST were broadened it would lead to a drop in consumer spending and a drop in real wages across the country. Can the Prime Minister explain exactly how broadening the GST will increase jobs and grow the Australian economy?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for the question, which she asks with a tone of triumph having secured it by her agility! We admire her agility! I have to say to the member for Bendigo very simply that she is essentially asking me for an opinion on the design of the tax system. She knows as well as we all do that there has never been any proposal to change the rate of the GST or impose an economy-wide tax that applies to all taxpayers regardless of income that was not accompanied by countervailing measures to ensure that people on lower incomes were compensated. That is exactly what her own party did with the carbon tax and, of course, it is what happened in 2001 when the GST was introduced.

The honourable member understands that, so she is really asking the question: if the GST were increased and there were no other measures, would it hurt or undercut the disposable income of people on lower incomes? Of course, it would. That is why the objective of any changes to the tax system that are effected under our government will be to ensure that the tax system enables and incentivises more jobs and more growth so that more people in Bendigo can get a job, so that more businesses in Bendigo will invest and so that more businesses in Bendigo will have the confidence to take on an additional employee. That is what we are seeking to do. We want more jobs and more growth. That is the objective. To do that, any change has to be fair.