Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer: Will the Treasurer explain why it is important to reward aspiration and encourage Australians to have a go in our economy, and what are the risks of alternative approaches?

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

I thank the member for Swan for his question. The people who know about aspiration and having a go are small business owners. The member for Swan knows all about running small businesses and supporting investors in small businesses and about people having a go. It's a shame that the member for Cowan is not more like the member for Swan when it comes to understanding small business, because, in the member for Cowan's electorate, Cohen is a small-business owner. He is in the member for Cowan's electorate. He does not have a member of parliament who understands the pressures faced by small business.

Dr Aly interjecting—

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

The member for Cowan will cease interjecting.

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

He's not a retiree. He relies on the tax refund he gets from the shares that he bought to give him an income when his business is not seeing great days. Because in small businesses, like the member for Swan understands, some years you have good years and some years you have bad years. Small-business men and small-business women go out there, they buy shares, they get the tax refunds from those when the business is going through lean years, and that is their income. What those opposite don't understand is that the profit of a small business is the small-business owner's wage. That's what they live on. In some years they don't make a profit, and in those years they rely on investments they have put into shares and the tax refund, which is theirs, not the government's. It's theirs. It is owed to them. They have made the investment. Members opposite simply don't get this. They don't get small business. They don't understand what they have done with this clueless and gutless tax on retirees—and not just retirees, as I have just demonstrated with Cohen, a small-business owner in the member for Cowan's electorate. What they don't understand is that people make investments so they can support themselves and their families.

Dr Aly interjecting—

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

The member for Cowan is warned.

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

What the Leader of the Opposition has done, together with his clueless shadow Treasurer, is to just go in there and stomp all over their income, pick it all up and put it in their pockets, and off they have run. This shadow Treasurer is clueless when it comes to understanding small business. As we know, he's the shadow minister for small business, and now he is the shadow minister for making business smaller, making their profits smaller and making their wages smaller, because this shadow Treasurer cannot be trusted with the best interests of small business, of retirees, of pensioners and of any other Australian who is decently out there trying to earn a living.