Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Social Services. Will the minister inform the House how lower company tax rates will help grow the economy, create jobs and therefore assist Australians with their endeavour to get out of the welfare system and into work? What are the alternative approaches?

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

They're taking your questions off you, Scott!

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

The member for Rankin has been warned, so he can leave under 94(a). I remind members that I'll take more severe action if they keep interjecting.

The member for Rankin then left the chamber.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Forde, because he shares this view: that the welfare goal for all governments is to create opportunity and improve individual lives by having more and more people each year moving off welfare and into work. Under six years of Labor, the year-on-year expenditure growth in unemployment benefits was an astonishing 13½ per cent. Under our government, the comparative figure has been 3.7 per cent a year. What that Labor figure represents, very sadly, was each year too many people were going onto Newstart and too few people were moving off the payment. Last financial year, our success has been underpinned by job creation. We created 240,000 jobs last year. The government has decreased taxes for 3.2 million small businesses that employ 6.5 million Australians. But, of course, I'm asked about alternatives. The alternative approach by members opposite is that the opposition wants to reverse tax cuts to small business. The formula is simple: competitive business equals more jobs growth equals less welfare dependency.

In the past, the single greatest supporter of that common sense policy proposition was the Leader of the Opposition. We have found a very interesting speech. It took some digging. In fact, we thought the member for Lilley's biography was hard to find, but this took some digging. This was truly a lost artefact. We went onto the Leader of the Opposition's website, and, mysteriously, the speech made days before this is there, available, clear and present, and the speech made days after this is there, available, clear and present. It took some digging to find this mysteriously missing speech, but we found it—we found it, members! In that big warehouse run by Indiana Jones, somewhere between the ark of the covenant and the crystal skull, we found it. We found the lost speech at ACOSS and no wonder it was so well hidden, because this is what it said:

… reducing the corporate tax rate … is also an investment in the Australian people— including people who might now be on welfare …

The Leader of the Opposition then specifically rejected an increase to the rate of Newstart, and what he says is:

… what it fails to recognise is that we need to encourage employment participation, not greater welfare dependency.

But it got even better, members, because the Leader of the Opposition then went on to give specific policy advice as to how to structure company tax cuts. He said:

… lowering the corporate rate for smaller businesses only … creates an artificial incentive for Australian businesses to downsize.

He then finished with a rhetorical flourish, when he said:

Friends, corporate tax reform … creates jobs right up and down the income ladder.

(Time expired)

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Mr Sukkar interjecting—

Mr Pyne interjecting—

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

Members on my right. The member for Deakin. The Leader of the House.