Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister explain to the House why he would prefer to have an internationally, uncompetitive backpacker tax rate of 32½ per cent instead of agreeing to the Senate's resolution that it should be the same as New Zealand at 10½ per cent? Why would the Prime Minister prefer to punish Australia's tourism, agriculture and hospitality sectors, rather than swallow his pride and accept a compromised rate of 10½ per cent?

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

I thank the Prime Minister for the opportunity to respond on behalf of the government, Mr Speaker. If the member opposite actually understood something about this, he would know that at 19c—the compromise position put forward by the government—a backpacker will take home and put in their pocket just as much by working in Australia as they would by working in Canada, the United Kingdom or New Zealand. What those opposite are proposing, what they want, is a lower rate of tax for foreign workers and a higher rate of tax for small businesses in this country. So I ask those opposite why they want Australian small businesses to pay higher rates of tax than they do in New Zealand, in Korea, in Malaysia, in Singapore, in the United Kingdom and, ultimately, in the United States.

Those opposite come into this place every day, lecturing about the need for more revenue measures, and in the other place and in here they have voted to give foreign workers a tax cut at a cost to the Australian taxpayer of $500 million. That is the priority of those opposite. And this is the shadow Treasurer who said that it is a Labor thing to have the ambition of reducing company tax—'It's a Labor thing.' Well, it is not a Labor thing when they have to come into this place and vote for it. What they would rather do is vote for tax cuts for foreign workers.