Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. How is it fair that this Prime Minister is making it even harder for pensioners who are struggling with their power bills by cutting the energy supplement of $14 a fortnight whilst giving a $65 billion handout to big business?

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

The honourable member, of course, in her seat of Richmond has many self-funded retirees and many pensioners, and I'm sure she's been getting a lot of messages about her leader's effort to double-tax hardworking Australians who've retired and saved their money. It's important to remember that the franking credit that a person on low taxable income is able to cash out is tax that's already been paid. By denying them the ability to get the cash, what the Labor Party is doing is, in effect, double-taxing people on lowest incomes. That's what they're doing.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

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

That's exactly what they're doing. Yes, they are. Absolutely. That's the effect. Let's be quite frank about it. Now, the honourable member will know I met, with the member for Cowper, a couple in their late 80s last week.

Opposition members interjecting—

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

The Prime Minister will resume his seat for a second. I warned earlier about the level of interjections. I've warned a number of people. The member for Wills will leave under 94(a). A repeat of that will see further ejections. The Prime Minister has the call.

The member for Wills then left the chamber.

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

I met a couple with the member for Cowper in their late 80s—of which there would be many counterparts in the honourable member's seat of Richmond up there on the Tweed—who had very carefully saved, counting every penny. The Labor Party's policy would result in their income being reduced by 17 per cent, or about $3,500 in net terms. And do you know what their solution was—how they felt they would afford that? They would cancel their private health insurance. That's what the Labor Party, with all of its compassion, with all of its determination to chase after millionaires—that's what it's doing.

The Labor Party has gone after the pockets, the purses, the bank accounts of hardworking Australians who've saved all their lives, who have complied with an encouragement to put their money into blue-chip Australian shares that pay franked dividends—a policy that the Labor Party campaigned on 20 years ago and welcomed the introduction of in 2000 by the Howard government. They're going after them. It will not hit multimillionaires with big portfolios. You know why? Because they've got income that is not franked income, because they've got rents, they've got interest and they'll offset the franking credits against that other income. The honourable members' opposite tax policy on pensioners and retirees is going to hit people on low incomes, hit the most vulnerable people— (Time expired)