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

Let me assist Senator Di Natale. An Australian taxpayer earning $30,000, under our plan to provide immediate tax relief to low-and middle-income earners, gets 8.3 per cent in income tax cuts, whereas a high-income earner—somebody on $200,000, as you've referenced—gets a 0.2 per cent cut in income tax under the initial—in fact, over the first four years, the value of the income tax cut for somebody earning $200,000 is 0.2 per cent. In every year, for somebody earning $30,000, it's an 8.3 per cent tax cut. For everyone earning $50,000 a year, it is a 6.2 per cent tax cut. So, clearly, the tax cut is very much directed and targeted at low- and middle-income earners. We are prioritising low- and middle-income earners.

But unlike the Labor Party and unlike the Greens, we want to encourage all Australians to work hard to get ahead. We want to back in all Australians, and we do believe in reward for effort. We know that in the socialist model of the Labor Party and the Greens equality of outcome makes everyone poorer, which has been tried in Eastern Europe to great effect. I would invite them to go and have a look. I know that that is the model that the Greens and the Labor Party subscribe to these days.

We believe in free enterprise, the free market, reward for effort, smaller government, lower taxes, backing in Australians, backing in Australian workers and helping Australian families to get ahead. That is what this is all about.