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

My question is to the Prime Minister. On 28 March, the Prime Minister said about his entire corporate tax giveaway:

We will be committed to it today and we'll be committed to it at the next election

Does the Prime Minister stand by his answer?

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

I do, Mr Speaker, and the Leader of the Opposition stands, too, by his and his party's assessment of a reduction in tax as a giveaway. What does that mean? You can't give away something you don't own. The Labor Party believe that every profit, every dollar of income earned by an Australian business, belongs by right to the government, and so any reduction in tax is a giveaway. This is the hubris of the Labor Party. So contemptuous are they of the people whose hard work and enterprise has created, since September 2013, 1,013,600 new jobs in Australia that they regard every dollar they earn as belonging to the government, and whatever is left to them after tax as nothing more than a gift given in the mercy and charity of the Labor Party. Mr Speaker, we know better than that. We know that our strong economy and all of the essential services on which it relies depends on those hardworking Australian businesses.

The Labor Party's made it very clear. It does not simply oppose the future elements of the enterprise tax plan that have not been legislated; it wants to repeal the tax cuts for millions of small and medium Australian family-owned businesses. That's what it wants to do. It wants to go to all those businesses, whether they are in Longman or in Braddon or in Fremantle in Perth or in Mayo or in any electorate. It wants to go to them and say to them, 'We're going to jack up your tax.' And then will it take responsibility as the economy weakens, as people lose opportunities, as jobs diminish, as the ability of Australians to realise their dreams would be dimmed by the Labor Party and its relentless attack on business?

We stand for enterprise, we stand for Australians getting ahead, we stand with business investing and we stand above all for jobs. And we have the runs on the board: 415,000 jobs last year, the most in any year in our history. We promised jobs and growth in 2016, and now, in 2018, we are delivering.