Chris Crewther (Dunkley, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister inform the House how the government is acting to ensure that Australians keep more of what they earn? Is the Prime Minister aware of any risk to this approach?

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

I thank the member for Dunkley for his question and I thank him for his strong belief, like all members on this side of the House, that our government believes in a fair go for those who have a go. That means we believe that Australians should keep more of what they earn. We want them to be able to keep more of what they earn and pay out less. That's why we announced this week that we will continue to build on the work that we've put in place as a government to get electricity prices down by, firstly, ensuring that we take the large energy companies to task so they do the right thing by their customers and we get those large energy companies in line with the tougher powers and the other measures we're putting in place to achieve just that. But it's also about not adopting the reckless international targets that the Labor Party will pursue if they are in government which would see a 45 per cent emissions reduction target and which would see a bigger impost on the household bills of mums and dads, pensioners and small and family businesses than the carbon tax they inflicted on the Australian people, the one they said they wouldn't introduce but then did introduce that our government got rid of when we came to government.

Secondly, we're doing it through lower taxes for wage earners, a legislated $144 billion worth of income tax cuts for all Australian wage earners. We are abolishing an entire tier of the tax system so, as people go out there, as they work more, year upon year, they won't be dragged back because of bracket creep. Our government has taken action on bracket creep. Those opposite want to cut those income tax cuts in half and rip $70 billion of tax back from the hardworking wage earners of Australia. We've done the same thing for small and family businesses, legislating to cut their taxes to 25 per cent.

We're keeping spending under control, with the lowest rate of expenditure growth of any government going back 50 years. Not only does that mean we are able to keep expenditure under control, which is getting the budget back into surplus and retaining our AAA credit rating a year earlier on that return to balance as projected; it also means we are able to keep taxes under control. Those opposite can't keep taxes under control because they can't keep spending under control. That is why they're going to force Australians to pay more and keep less of what they earn. They're going to do that by whacking up their taxes, by abolishing negative gearing as we know it and by putting up the capital gains tax, which will rob construction workers and tradies of their jobs and undermine the value of the one thing Australians work so hard for, and that is their own home.