Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) to a question without notice asked by Senator Cameron today relating to proposed company tax cuts.

What another pathetic performance from this pathetic government during question time—absolute nonsense coming from Senator Cormann and those on the front bench, who don't have a clue about the pressures that ordinary Australian workers are under. This is the Leader of the Government in the Senate who can't answer a question when it comes to any criticism of this government. He hadn't read the Goldman Sachs position. Malcolm Turnbull used to work for Goldman Sachs. They are arguing that 60 per cent of the profits from any corporate tax cut in this country will end up going overseas. They won't go into the pockets of ordinary Australians, battling to put food on the table, battling to get shoes for their kids to go to school. That won't happen. The money will go overseas.

The problem in the US is that the money is not going to workers in the United States. It's clear that what's happened in the United States is that a build-up of pressure for wage increases has been marginally dealt with. What's been described as happening in the US is that the crumbs of the tax cuts are going to workers. That's what the US analysis is: that the workers will not get a pay increase of any significance. They're getting one-off bonuses in a small number of companies in the US.

We've had companies here making massive profits over the last few years, and have the workers in this country had a wage increase? No, they have not; their wages have been stagnating. And all we get from this rabble of a government, from this economically incoherent government, is an argument that if you give big business a tax cut of $65 billion, somehow, wage increases will trickle down to the workers. Well, after 27 years as a union official, I know that nothing trickles down to workers. You've got to get out there and fight for an increase. You've got to get out and battle for every increase you get. But this lot over here, some of whom have never had a real job in their lives, think there's some magic out there and that, by giving a tax cut, you will get trickle-down economics in action and workers will get a wage increase.

They want to give $65 billion of tax cuts to multinational corporations and the banks. What a ridiculous proposition! We don't hear anything from this mob across the chamber about government debt anymore. We don't hear anything from them about balancing the budget anymore. We don't hear anything from them at all on this. All you get from them are these crazy economic propositions that we've seen—and Senator Cormann has been at the core of every economic decision that's been made. First, we had Malcolm Turnbull, the Prime Minister, saying we should increase the GST. That would be really helpful for working families! I think that lasted about a week. Then we had a new approach, and that was that taxing would be done by the states and that that would solve all the problems—let the states tax working people! I think that lasted two days. Now we've got trickle-down economics.

If trickle-down economics worked, it would've worked by now, because companies are making massive profits. Business executives are getting massive increases in executive salaries—Alan Joyce, $14 million a year; Chris Rex from Ramsey Health Care, $18 million a year. If anyone sitting in the audience is paying private health insurance, that's where your private health insurance is going. It's going to the executives. It won't be the workers who will be getting the money. (Time expired)