Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Why are the Albanese Labor government's cost-of-living tax cuts so important for responsible economic management, and how does that compare to other approaches?

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Lyons for helping to ensure that every Australian taxpayer gets a tax cut. Eighty-eight per cent of workers in his local community will get a bigger tax cut to help with the cost of living. And thanks to the member for inviting me to spend time with him and local steelworkers near Launceston. Ninety-two per cent of steelworkers now get a bigger tax cut. Ninety-eight per cent of the wardies I met with in Meadowbrook get a bigger tax cut. Ninety-seven per cent of early educators in Carrum Downs get a bigger tax cut. Ninety-four per cent of plumbers and sprinkler fitters I met with in Beenleigh get a bigger tax cut.

As the Prime Minister said, more people working, more people earning more, more people keeping more of what they earn—that is responsible economic management. By getting the budget in better nick, we can invest in housing and skills and energy and roll out more help for more people, not just in Dickson and Dunkley or Farrer or Forde or Lyons or Leichhardt but in every community and right up and down the income scale.

Since we announced our changes, those opposite have been tying themselves in knots over our changes. If they support our changes, why do they keep bagging them? And, if they don't support them, why are they voting for our changes? Every once in a while, we get a real insight into what they think about tax changes, like when the member for Farrer said they'd absolutely roll them back; like when it was put to the member for Hume yesterday on Insiders that they were supporting our changes, and he said, 'No, we're not'; like when he was asked on the Sunrise program if he wanted more support at the lower end and he said no. I thought I'd misheard it, so I checked his transcript, and I discovered a very curious thing: the word 'no' is missing from the transcript. The word that they utter most frequently is missing from his own transcript.

Because of our responsible economic management, we've delivered the first surplus in 15 years. Inflation is moderating, wages are growing and, from 1 July, every Australian taxpayer gets a tax cut. Because of a decade of coalition disunity, dysfunction and disarray, those opposite are the party of higher quarterly inflation, the party of lower wages and harsher industrial relations, the party of higher taxes on middle Australia, the party of waste and rorts and bigger deficits and more debt. So I say to Australians tuning into the ABC tonight: if they thought that the Abbott and Turnbull and Morrison governments were bad, the leftovers of those governments are even worse.

Hon. Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! When the House comes to order, I'll hear from the member for Curtin.