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

The discussion paper is there for all to see. It sets out the items for discussion very clearly. What I found interesting in the way the question was framed by the Leader of the Opposition, though, is that she referred to revenue implications, because the key point that we've been making is that this is a tax grab, this is a revenue measure, whereas the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Shorten, and the shadow Treasurer have been talking about this as if it were an item of expenditure. It is not an item of expenditure. What the Labor Party is proposing to do is to increase tax—to increase the tax on more than one million retirees, including, and in particular, pensioners with direct investment of some of their savings in shares and self-funded retirees who have some direct investments in shares. Whatever way in which Senator Wong and the Labor Party are trying to spin this, this is Labor changing their long-standing bipartisan support for an arrangement, a deliberate design feature of our tax system, that is entirely appropriate—that is, that low income earners should be able to take advantage of the same tax deductibility arrangements as high income earners. Bill Shorten uses the rhetoric of targeting the big end of town, of targeting rich people, for political purposes. He bamboozles people with technical language, when all along he's actually targeting low and middle income earners. Ninety-seven per cent of Australians who use this particular methodology have income of less than $87,000 a year. (Time expired)