Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline to the House how increased investment will lead to increased earnings and opportunities for businesses and hardworking Australians in Mackellar and elsewhere? Will he also outline to the House how alternative approaches to the government's plan pose a risk to increased investment?

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

I thank the member for Mackellar for his question. As a former small business owner himself, he will know and welcome the national accounts results that we saw yesterday. The national accounts, if you look at them over a period of time, show that since the end of the mine investment boom wages and company profits have been in very tough territory. Prior to yesterday's results, which were heavily influenced by the improved mining profits from the spike in commodity prices towards the end of last year, there has been a real challenge in the area of profits and wages over the last five years. In fact, in the three years prior to the December quarter's result, on average company profits had been falling by 0.2 per cent every quarter. For 12 successive quarters, private new investment had also been in decline. In those circumstances, when you have businesses under such strain and pressure, is it any wonder that that wage growth has also been subdued? Over the same period the growth in the compensation of employees shown in the national accounts was very modest, but it was positive and growing at 0.7 per cent per quarter.

The government understands that small and medium-sized businesses have been carrying an enormous burden in our economy. They have been putting their hands in their own pockets for years now in a tough environment—

Dr Leigh interjecting—

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

The member for Fenner is warned!

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

to ensure that their employees stay in work and are able to have even the modest increases in wages that have been achieved. As they put their hands in their pockets, they have looked to this government to do what we did in the budget and say to them, 'We are going to take the tax monkey off your back', so we are in a position to be able to support them in their ambitions for their businesses, to grow their businesses and to support higher wages for their employees.

You cannot give employees higher wages if your business is going backwards. You cannot get a job in a business that is closed. The recipe of those opposite, the recipe of the Labor Party—yesterday, it was amazing that the shadow Treasurer, for the first time in a long time, did not bother to mention the national accounts or put a statement out on it, and he sneered at the idea that companies might make profits in this country. That is the nature of the modern Labor Party—to attack those who put their hands in their own pockets to run small and medium-sized businesses to ensure that they can provide the wages and the jobs that Australians who work hard rely on. Those opposite oppose the policies that will support those businesses to put more people in jobs, to support those businesses to invest and grow. It is not a modern Labor Party—it is a dinosaur Labor Party, which is wedded to that old ideology of attacking businesses in the absolute joke of an idea that they think that will help workers. (Time expired)