Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline to the House how the government is acting to deliver lower and more competitive taxes for hardworking Australians running small businesses in my electorate of Hughes and around the nation? Is the Treasurer aware of any alternative approaches?

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

I thank the member for Hughes, who is a great champion of small business in this parliament—a great champion. In this budget, once again the Turnbull government has said yes to small businesses, to back them in to ensure that they can pay lower taxes. In particular, we have said yes again to extending the instant asset write-off, not just to companies with up to $2 million in turnover but to companies with up to $10 million in turnover. That is who we have said will get tax cuts and extra tax support as small businesses in this country. The Labor Party has said no to that. The Labor Party has said no to small businesses of up to $10 million having lower taxes and having access to the instant asset write-off.

In addition to that, in the budget we said yes to cutting the red tape of state and local governments by entering into a partnership with those governments, with some $300 million to cut red tape to lower the costs for small business in this country. We said yes to that. The Labor Party said no to small business when it comes to cutting red tape. They want small businesses to pay higher taxes and they want small businesses to deal with more red tape. We said yes in this parliament to cutting the taxes for small businesses and medium-sized businesses with up to $50 million in turnover. As the Prime Minister has said, some 6½ million Australian employees work in those businesses, to whom we gave a tax cut in this parliament. What did the Labor Party do? They said no and they voted no in this parliament for those 6½ million Australians working in more than three million businesses. And it is worse than that, because we know the shadow Treasurer and the Leader of the Opposition have fully backed it into their costings, reversing those tax cuts for small businesses.

Ms Butler interjecting—

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

The member for Griffith.

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

They are going to increase taxes on hardworking small businesses if they ever get to occupy these Treasury benches, but they will not be up-front with the small business community about that. You will not hear from the Leader of the Opposition or the shadow Treasurer an honest statement that it is their intention to lift the taxes on small and medium-sized businesses that have been passed through this parliament. But if they do not say that, what they are saying is that they have a $30 billion black hole in their costings, because they costed all of those changes. So, what is it? Do they support small businesses and will they stand by the small business and medium-sized business tax cuts, or will they be honest and tell Australian small businesses that they are going to say no to them, as they keep saying no to a positive economic growth plan that is being pursued by this government?