Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. In question time yesterday the Prime Minister guaranteed that lower business taxes result in higher wages. But today a leaked survey from the Business Council of Australia reveals that more than 80 per cent of big business have ruled out increasing wages or employing more staff because of the Prime Minister's $65 billion business tax handout. Why is the Prime Minister still claiming that his big business handout will put money in workers' pockets when even big business says it won't?

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

Well, that was a ferocious peroration. I will have to gather my wits to deal with it! The Leader of the Opposition knows exactly what lower business taxes do. It's been the same for as long as anybody has looked at the matter. It was the same in 2011 when he stood here—and I'll repeat it again—and said that cutting the income tax rate increases domestic productivity and domestic investment and that more capital means higher productivity and economic growth and leads to more jobs and higher wages. That is exactly why Labor advocated for or justified the company tax cut—a modest one, only one per cent—in 2010. It's why Keating did it. It's why Costello did it. It's why Donald Trump has done it in the United States. It's why Theresa May has done it in the UK. It's why Emmanuel Macron is cutting company tax in France. It is a very well-worn path, and the fact is that we know that if businesses get a better return on investment then they will invest more.

Recently we have also had advice from the Leader of the Opposition on portfolio management. What he's proposing to do to retirees with his pensioners cash grab is going to basically encourage people not to have Australian shares, which pay franked dividends, in their portfolio but to instead have property, bonds or bank deposits that pay income that is not franked. That's what he's done. And he acknowledges this. He was asked about this the other day and said, 'Property investment is a good bet.' So what he's now doing, at the same time as he claims to be concerned about first home buyers not being able to get into the market—notwithstanding that first home buyers are taking up a larger and larger share of the home market now, thanks to the genuinely carefully calibrated reforms that we've overseen in the property sector, which has seen a cooling in the residential sector—is saying to all of those self-funded retirees, 'Look, get out of all of those Australian shares. Buy some foreign shares, because there's no franking credits there. Put some money into a property trust. Buy some real estate and get some unfranked income,' because he knows that means they'll then be able to use the franking credits to offset the tax liability on their other income. What a joke of an opposition leader, who is now trying to give portfolio advice to self-funded retirees while he fleeces their savings. (Time expired)