Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. How can the Prime Minister justify giving someone earning $1 million a tax cut of nearly $17,000 every single year, confirmed in last night's budget?

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

I will ask the Treasurer to answer.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer will resume his seat. The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat.

Honourable members interjecting—

Members will cease interjecting. The Prime Minister is quite entitled to transfer a question to any minister. It is outlined clearly in Practice; you can look to the first paragraph of page 550. If that is what the point of order is about, it is not valid.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, the right of the Prime Minister to refer to another minister is when the other minister is better able to answer the question. How can the Treasurer be better able—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. I say to the Manager of Opposition Business I am very tolerant with both himself and the Leader of the House, given their positions, but I do not want him to find the limit.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Prime Minister for the opportunity to respond to the question. The only change to the tax schedules that was contained in last night's budget was to broaden the middle income tax bracket to ensure that average wage earners on full-time earnings stayed within the middle income tax bracket.

On the matter that I think the Leader of the Opposition is referring to, I would like to take him back to when he was Assistant Treasurer. He spoke to the Tax Institute on 4 March 2011. He said:

The Government—

that is, the then Labor government—

recognises that higher taxation reduces incentives to work, save and invest—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members will cease interjecting. The member for Gorton is warned. The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes. Surely the Treasurer can be directly relevant to the budget for more than 20 seconds.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. I refer him to my earlier rulings on this subject. The Treasurer is in order and he has the call.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition said:

… higher taxation reduces incentives to work, save and invest, which I believe are essential building blocks for ensuring Australia's long-term economic growth.

I refer also to the words of his own Shadow Treasurer, which under the bookkeeping rules that he will apply to managing a budget if he is Prime Minister means his Treasurer would be a shop steward, not a Treasurer, and they would apply union bookkeeping rules. The Shadow Treasurer said:

People at the upper end of the income scale like a tax cut, and they deserve a tax cut.

The member for Fraser said, 'Humans typically work harder when their tax rate fails.' The Shadow Treasurer—

Opposition members: Fails!

Falls, I should say. The Shadow Treasurer has also said:

There’ll be things like the deficit levy which we wouldn’t do in office …

He has said:

There are items which we might not like, like the deficit levy …

What we know of those opposite and their feigned attacks on this issue is that when they are in government they say that they want to reduce taxes and they think it is really important to reduce the tax burden. That is what I suspect the Leader of the Opposition may well think. But what we know is as the election approaches the political motive of this Leader of the Opposition knows no bounds. There is nothing he will not change, including when they came into this place and they voted for a temporary levy. We honour our promises. This Leader of the Opposition will break any promise, break any word, change any position because of the political opportunism that runs through every single vein in his body. What we know from those opposite is they cannot be trusted to keep a straight line on tax and supporting Australians to work, save and invest.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You were arguing for super changes two months ago!

Ms Owens interjecting —

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Rankin is warned. The member for Parramatta is warned.