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

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline for the House what the government is doing to deliver for small businesses across Australia, including in the electorate of Bennelong, and why policy certainty in corporate taxes is so critical for small businesses?

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

I thank the member for Mackellar for his question. In the electorate of Bennelong, there are 7,900 incorporated businesses with a turnover of less than $50 million who will benefit from the legislated tax cuts of the Turnbull government. In addition to that, there are 9,700 unincorporated individual small businesses who will also benefit from those tax cuts. That's almost 18,000 small to medium sized businesses in the electorate of Bennelong. Many of them are run by people who have come to this country full of entrepreneurial spirit—the Korean small business community, the Chinese small business community, the Indian national small business community in Bennelong. They are highly entrepreneurial. Those 18,000 businesses are all benefitting from the tax cuts that have been legislated by this parliament. They can count on those tax cuts so long as there is a Turnbull government to make sure they stay in place.

There are some 125,000 incorporated entities who also are benefiting from these changes all around the country. And they want to know one thing from the Leader of the Opposition and from the shadow Treasurer before the by-election in Bennelong: will the Labor Party reverse the legislated tax cuts that have been put in place by this government? They need to know it by the time of that by-election. If they don't know it by the time of the by-election, you can be sure a Labor government will reverse the tax cuts that have been legislated by this parliament. I will tell you why: because there is $25 billion worth of revenue attached to reversing those tax cuts.

Every time the Labor Party says that we don't need $60 billion to $65 billion worth of corporate tax cuts, that we can't afford them and they shouldn't go ahead, they are telling the small to medium sized businesses in Bennelong that they will remove those tax cuts—your legislated tax cuts. They need to know by the date of the by-election. The shadow Treasurer, when asked, says, 'I will tell you at another time, at a time of my convenience, well ahead of the next election.' No, they need to know now. He shakes his said and says, 'No, they don't', with total contempt for the small to medium sized business owners in Bennelong, 18,000 of them. He refuses to tell them if they will keep their tax cuts under a Labor government.

That's what we have come to expect from the Labor Party. We understand that their policies will strand businesses in this country on a tax island, uncompetitive with the rest of the world. The IMF has recently warned that the US is moving even closer to tax cuts for businesses and investments in the United States; that only heightens the risk to the Australian economy. The Labor Party is a risk to jobs, they are a risk to growth in our economy and they are a risk to every one of the 18,000 small businesses in Bennelong. (Time expired)