Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to be clear that Labor want you to earn more and keep more of what you earn. The Liberal and National parties want you to work longer for less. The first chance they get, they'll walk away from hardworking regional Australians who absolutely deserve a tax cut. Labor's cost-of-living tax cuts deliver more relief for Australians, allowing to them keep more of what they earn. On 1 July every Australian taxpayer will get a tax cut. That's 13.6 million Australians. That's 2.9 million more Australians than under the previous plan. The changes that Labor are attempting to push through this Senate today will also mean that more Australians get an even bigger tax cut than that which was promised before.

The Labor Party gets it, and this compares starkly with the reaction of the Liberal and National parties. They've had more positions than a game of Twister. At first they claimed not to know what it was, but decided they were against it; next, they said they didn't have a position; and, finally, they decided, actually, it's a good idea, but through gritted teeth they have articulated a very slow and reluctant 'yes' to this legislation, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living Tax Cuts) Bill 2024 and the associated bill. What we see in the Senate today is the continuing whingefest that Labor would dare to make sure that you earn more and keep more of what you earn.

I'm proud to be the representative for Farrer over here in this Senate, on this side of the parliament. In Farrer, if you're a shop assistant working in Albury on $32,000, you're going to get a tax cut under the Albanese government of $414. I know that that's going to make a difference to you. The local member doesn't seem to understand that. In fact, if they're in Farrer, they should look around: 76,000 people in their seat are going to get a bigger tax cut because of Labor.

I'm proud to represent the seat of Lyne, on the Mid North Coast, a beautiful part of the coastline of our great state of New South Wales. If you're a nurse working in Lyne earning $76,000, you'll receive a tax cut of $1,579, and 57,000 of the people around you in the community are going to be better off under Labor than they would have been under the previous government.

If you're a truckie in the great seat of Hume—which I'm very proud to represent in this chamber—earning $77,000, you're going to get a tax cut of $1,604, and 70,000 people in your community are going to get that tax cut.

If you're in the Riverina, a beautiful part of this state, working as a primary school teacher—and I've met many of you down there—and earning $80,000, you'll get a tax cut of $1,679, and 67,000 people in your electorate will get additional benefit because of Labor's efforts to make sure that you earn more and keep more of what you earn.

If you're from the electorate of Parkes, which is the beautiful north-western part of New South Wales—for those who are from other states in this great country—and you're a police officer earning $110,000, you will get a $2,429 tax cut, and 62,000 people in the community living around you will also get the benefit of that great Labor tax cut.

In Calare electorate, 71,000 people are going to be advantaged. If you have a job that earns you $40,000, you're going to get a tax cut of $654. But under the Nationals, who claim to represent you in this place, you would have got zero.

Labor understands that there are real benefits for Australians in making sure that you earn more and keep more of what you earn. The truth is that most of the benefits of the tax cuts that will go through this chamber today, with begrudging support from the Nationals, who oppose them, will go to regional Australia. I'm really proud to represent the people of Farrer here, because they have certainly found their member in the other chamber wanting—in fact, if we take her at her word, at the first chance she gets she is going to tax her community more.