Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a cracker of a budget! I want to get to selling the million jobs that we've put on since coming—

Mr Rob Mitchell interjecting—

and I expect to take a lot of interjections from those on the other side. Before I get to the budget, I acknowledge the National Fire Industry Association. There are about 12 delegates in the parliament at the moment, trawling around and catching up with guys. The National Fire Industry Association work in manufacturing, engineering, supplying and installing fire protection systems under the guidance of CEO Wayne Smith, commonly known to me as Frank. I'll see you guys very soon—pour me a red!

I'm here to speak about taxation and jobs. Those on the other side love to talk about this topic and on a daily basis attempt to claim they have a better record on jobs and growth and tax relief to families. Let's have a look at that record. On this side of the House we've just ticked over the one million jobs created since forming government—one million more earning income, providing for their families, putting food on the table, supporting their local businesses and reducing welfare lines. Just in the last 12 months under the guidance of the coalition 332,000 jobs have been created.

In contrast, guess how many jobs those so-called friends of the workers on the other side produced in their last 12 months. We produced 332,000. Do you reckon they produced 300,000? No. Did they produce 200,000 when in office? No, they did not. Did they get to 100,000? They could not even do that. I inform the House that in the last 12 months of a Labor led government, they produced a dismal 89,000 jobs—a disastrous 12 months under Rudd, Gillard, Shorten and then Rudd, a period of absolute anarchy! We hear the rhetoric of how this side of the House is deserting families and giving $17 billion of tax cuts to the big banks. By the time the big banks start paying, over four years they will have already paid $16 billion worth of levies back to the government. If the opposition looks closely, they would see that these banks in 2015-16 paid a combined company tax bill of $10 billion as reported by the Taxation Office on data.gov.au.

Why do Labor want to drive down jobs and growth by stifling those businesses that want to employ Australians? With Australia's current tax competitiveness at one of the poorest rates across a range of measures, Labor want to drive the nails even further into the coffin, and signal to the world, 'Invest in Australia, and you'll pay some of the highest taxes in the world.' As Chris Richardson from Deloitte said about the company tax rate:

This is the federal tax that hurts the economy more than any other. It shrinks the economy.