Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on how the government's plan to reduce taxes will grow the economy and create more jobs for Australians, and is the Treasurer aware of any other proposals?

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

I thank the member for Goldstein for his question. He knows that our budget is a plan for a stronger economy. Under the coalition government of the Liberal and National Parties, that's what we have: a stronger economy, where more than a million jobs have been created since we were first elected in 2013, and some 415,000 in the record year of jobs at more than a thousand jobs every single day on average. A key component of our plan for a stronger economy is to ensure that we keep taxes under control, that taxes do not choke growth, take away jobs from the economy, prevent wage increases and stymie investment. We have a plan to keep a clear control on those taxes in our fiscal strategy.

On top of that we have delivered into this place two important tax plans. The first one, the personal tax plan, which provides $140 billion worth of tax relief to all working Australians, the Labor Party came in here and tried to chop in half. That's our personal tax plan dealing with bracket creep and ensuring that 94 per cent of Australians don't pay more than 32½ cents in the dollar. We have a personal tax plan that works for all Australians. It's why we've had an enterprise tax plan that keeps our businesses competitive by ensuring they have competitive tax rates. We do not think Australian businesses should pay the highest corporate tax rates in the world. We know that if businesses are forced to pay the government more tax then they are not in a position to invest in their employees, to grow their businesses, to access new markets—to do all of those things. The Labor Party thinks the best thing business can do is to give money to the government; we think the best thing business can do is to create jobs. That's why our competitive tax plan is there: to create jobs. It's also about what we're not doing. I'll tell you what we're not doing: we're not going to put a $220 billion tax burden—

Ms Kearney interjecting—

Yes, it is a burden, Member for Batman, a tax burden on the Australian economy with their ramping up of taxes in to the stratosphere. Let's not forget the biggest tax they will put on the Australian economy in their first budget if they were to become a government—on retirees: 3½ thousand of them in Braddon, 7,600 of them in Mayo, 4,300 of them in Longman. All would be hit by Labor's retiree tax, which rips off the tax refunds from Australians who have committed the great sin of investing in an Australian company. They want to rip those tax refunds away for no other reason than that they cannot control their appetite for tax, because they cannot control their spending when they're in government.