Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

It is not a baseless myth; it is actually lived experience. You can look no further than the experience of the Hawke government with Mr Keating as Treasurer when it tried to intervene in the market in this way. The basic proposition here is that we should stop people from being able to deduct the cost of generating income from their taxable income. That is what Senator Ludlam proposing. That is not a sensible way of running an economy.

I will finish by providing the factual information that I was starting to provide to the Senate before. Around half a million Australians in the 32.5 per cent tax bracket negatively gear. These are Australians earning between $37,001 and $80,000—hardly rich Australians. I understand that the Left in Australia and the Labor-Greens alliance want to run a class warfare campaign, trying to say that this is an unfair and unreasonable tax break for the rich. But, no, it is not, actually. (Time expired)