Trevor Evans (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister outline to the House how lower business taxes will help create jobs and grow wages for Australians, including in my electorate of Brisbane, and is the Prime Minister aware of any alternative approaches?

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

I thank the honourable member for his question and note his experience and hard work for small businesses. He understands the importance of small and family businesses, of which there are over 30,000 in his own electorate of Brisbane. These are businesses that are benefitting from our small and medium business tax cuts. They're benefitting right now. They're investing more and they're employing more. That's why we saw 403,000 jobs created last year, a quarter of them in Queensland, in fact, with 42,500 of those 100,000 new jobs in Queensland going to young people. Sixty per cent of the new jobs created last year were taken up by women, and that's why we've got a record level of female participation.

The big difference between the government's policies and those of the opposition's on this score is the opposition doesn't have one policy that will encourage one business to invest one dollar or employ one new person. When I make that challenge, they don't even offer one. They feel they don't need to. They seem to overlook the fact that 90 per cent of Australians work in the private sector. The businesses that are benefitting from the tax cuts which the parliament has already approved and which are in operation, and the last tranche of those already approved will start on 1 July for companies with turnovers of up to $50 million—not giants, but overwhelmingly Australian owned family businesses—employ half of the private sector workforce. In fact, it's a little more. That is the big difference.

We know that it is the enterprise, the imagination, the commitment and the confidence of private Australian businesses that are creating the jobs and the opportunities Australians need. That's why every policy we have is focused on encouraging that. A year or so ago, the honourable member opposite, the Leader of the Opposition, said 2017 was going to be all about jobs, jobs, jobs, but he came up with not one policy that would encourage one job.

Mr Husic interjecting—

I see the member for Chifley interjecting there. Jobs are being created in his electorate because of the government's policies. The government is committed to infrastructure, including Western Sydney Airport, which will create tens of thousands of jobs—a project he furiously opposed. They need better representation than that, and what they have from the government is a commitment to creating the opportunity, the investment and the jobs that Australians need. (Time expired)