Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on how the Morrison government's tax cuts and tax incentives are generating jobs in my electorate of Robertson and around Australia? Is the Treasurer aware of any alternative approaches?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Robertson for her question, and I acknowledge her strong support for small business in her electorate, like the Daily Dough Co. Emma, at 18 years of age, lost her job during the middle of the pandemic. She went on to start up a small business—a doughnut-making company that makes 2,000 doughnuts a day, which now employs 40 people and has used our immediate expensing provisions to buy a van to expand its business. That is a wonderful story of resilience during this pandemic and of small business having a go and getting a go.

Our tax cuts have provided people with more of their hard-earned money as a result of their efforts. It has recognised their aspiration; it has rewarded their aspiration. It has supported small businesses. It's backing them when they back themselves with these investment incentives. That is our track record: cutting taxes. That is our policy; that is what we believe in. The same can't be said for those opposite. Because this Leader of the Opposition, who has never delivered a budget and has never held a Treasury portfolio, has stood for higher taxes his whole career. He described our tax cuts for families as being for 'the top end of town'. He stood by the member for McMahon when the member for McMahon told the Australian people: 'If you don't like our $387 billion of higher taxes, don't vote for us.'

This Leader of the Opposition supported a retirees tax, a housing tax, higher taxes on super, higher taxes on income earners and a family business tax. Now we know that he has also supported an inheritance tax, and he's been supported by the Greens and he's been supported by the unions. But the Leader of the Opposition, in advocating for an inheritance tax, has even been supported by someone on his own side—a person that the Leader of the Opposition has described as 'a first-class economist'. Who could it have been who wrote a paper titled Bring back the inheritance tax? Who could it have been on the other side who said 'bring back the inheritance tax'? Who was it? It was the comrade from Fenner—the original Bolshevik—who, like the Leader of the Opposition, has advocated for higher taxes and who, like the Leader of the Opposition, has advocated for $387 billion of higher taxes on the Australian people. Only this side of the House will deliver lower taxes and more jobs