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

I thank Senator Fawcett for that question. It is important to working families in South Australia that our business tax cuts are implemented in full, because working families in South Australia are looking for more jobs and higher wages so South Australian families today and in the future have the best possible opportunity to get ahead.

More jobs and higher wages don't grow on trees. In South Australia and all around Australia more jobs and higher wages are created and paid for by successful, profitable businesses. Making sure our business tax rate is globally competitive helps makes businesses successful and profitable, boosting investment growth, jobs and wages. Any South Australian senator standing in the way of lower business taxes is standing in the way of more jobs and higher wages in South Australia. That includes you, Senator Farrell. Any South Australian senator standing in the way of lower business taxes is holding South Australia back, is holding South Australia's working families back and is standing for less private investment, lower growth, fewer jobs and lower wages. After 16 years of bad Labor government, more investment for more jobs and higher wages are particularly important for South Australia, because, of course, nominal growth in South Australia is below the national average, employment growth is dramatically below the national average and population growth is at just 0.61 per cent. While housing finance increased 3.9 per cent over the year across Australia, in South Australia it declined by nearly five per cent.

Let me add one important point: lowering the corporate tax rate for smaller businesses only creates an artificial incentive for Australian businesses to downsize. In a worst-case scenario, some businesses may actually lay people off to get smaller. A size-based different tax treatment would create a glass ceiling on business workforce growth. Bill Shorten, in March 2011 at ACOSS— (Time expired)