Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I asked Minister Fierravanti-Wells how it is fair that, at the same time the Turnbull government's freeze on family tax benefits will leave a family with two primary-school-aged children and a household income of $60,000 a year around $440 a year worse off, it's giving big business a $65 billion handout. In my question I referenced an open letter from 11 welfare organisations and representative bodies. The open letter reads:

We believe that a company tax cut is a mistake while almost 3 million people live in poverty.

It is unconscionable to pursue company tax cuts while refusing to raise the rate of Newstart and other allowances.

If the Senate allows these tax cuts to go through while the budget is still in deficit, further budget cuts are inevitable. We are concerned that already disadvantaged Australians may pay more for health, education and community services.

I sincerely want to thank those organisations for always bravely standing up for disadvantaged Australians, for issuing this statement and for calling the Prime Minister out for his unfair, unaffordable, illogical big-business tax cuts.

Minister Fierravanti-Wells's response was telling in that she did not mention families once—not once. She said that tax cuts would create more jobs. I questioned if she had read the report in the Financial Review today that over 80 per cent of Business Council of Australia CEOs who responded to a survey stated they would not increase wages or grow jobs as a result of big-business tax cuts. The minister then said, 'The best form of welfare is a job.' But my question was about family tax benefits. Those people have a job. The government have just frozen the increase in part of their tax refund. The minister might like to come back into the Senate and explain how family tax benefits relate to 'the best form of welfare is a job'. The minister then went on to pensioners and self-funded retirees, and her scripted attack on the opposition was overblown. The minister, as I said earlier, did not mention families once. Not once did the minister talk about children. Not once did she talk about low-income Australians doing it tough. It was just a rant—and it was a rant about pensioners and retirees. The minister concluded her answer with some more hysterics, stating that Labor is all about 'tax and spend'.

Minister, it is the very nature of government to tax and to spend. That's why we're all here. The minister should probably read up on the tax-to-GDP rate in this country. Under the government it's through the roof, and they have no plan to get it down. Where they have proposed to cut taxes to business, they have legislated to increase income taxes on working Australians, and they have further plans for more cash for business owners and less cash for workers. On Liberal Party economics 101—and I note that Minister Cormann, in many of his answers today, referred to economics 101 as though he were the professor and we his pupils—what Minister Cormann disclosed in his enthusiasm is that he knows nothing beyond the disproven theories contained in many first-year economics classes. Every time Minister Cormann uses this line, it's clear that he needs to go back to school and listen a bit harder in some of the more complex, later-year classes.

I hope that crossbench senators were listening to the responses of Minister Cormann and Minister Fierravanti-Wells, because they will decide the fate of the Prime Minister's unfair, unaffordable, illogical big-business tax cuts. We all know that there are millions of Australians who benefit from family tax benefits. For these millions of Australians—these children, these mums and dads—the family tax benefit is vital to making ends meet in the family budget. That $440 a year might not seem like much to some people in this place, but it makes the difference when choosing between turning on the heater on a cold day, buying that extra bag of groceries or buying that new pair of sports shoes for one of the kids.

I want to conclude my contribution today by noting that former Senator Lambie repeatedly used question time to ask tough questions of government about matters that impacted on the lives of Tasmanian families—those people who I represent. But I note that her successor's contribution to question time today did nothing—not one single thing—to stand up for Tasmanian families who are doing it tough and will continue to do it tough if this government gets away with the tax cuts for big business that it has proposed.