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

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, in just 10 days time, nearly 700,000 Australians will have their penalty rates cut, while millionaires will get a tax cut. Given real wages are going backwards, will the Prime Minister use what is left of this parliamentary sitting week to stop millionaires getting their tax cut and stop ordinary workers getting their pay cut?

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

Every element of our program is designed to ensure that there is stronger economic growth and more jobs—every element of it. We are reducing business taxes. As the member for McMahon remembers very well, in the days when he was an author—his book can be acquired at any bookshop where remaindering occurs; great piles of it are there—

Government Member:

A government member interjecting—

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

as in Clive James's memorable verse, next to piles of 'The Kung-Fu Cookbook' and other discards, but it is there. He advocated cutting business tax because he knew that it produced more investment and hence more employment. Well, he wants to roll that back. He wants to reverse that.

One of the things we know is that, in Australia, we stand by the rule of law. We know that the rule of law protects the great and the small. It protects the small businesses. It enables them to invest with confidence. Labor, on the other hand, is out there taking money and providing letters of endorsement, Leader of the Opposition, to the CFMEU's rally yesterday in which John Setka, one of the Leader of the Opposition's major benefactors—indeed, one of his controllers—threatened to follow, track and bully ABCC inspectors. He threatened to follow them. It is important to understand the length of the threats at this rally, at which a 'Welcome; keep up the good fight' message was heard from the Leader of the Opposition. This is what John Setka said about ABCC inspectors:

We're going to expose them all. We will lob in their neighbourhoods, we will tell them who lives in their house and what he does for a living … We will go to their local footy club. We will go to the local shopping centre. They will not be able to show their faces anywhere. Their kids will be ashamed of who their parents are when we expose all these ABCC inspectors.

He went on to say that 'they're in for a big surprise'.

Setka, the Leader of the Opposition's friend, benefactor and controller, says: 'They say there's two things you can't avoid; I say there's three. One of them is taxes, one of them is death and the other one is the construction unions, because, when we come after you, you'd better be careful.' That is the sponsor of the Labor Party. That is the sponsor of the Leader of the Opposition. That is his benefactor. That is his controller. What message does that send to business? What message does that send to Australians who want to invest and give someone a job? 'You have no rights unless you have the say-so of the CFMEU.' We are standing up to defy that— (Time expired)