E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA
MONDAY, 25 JUNE 2018

SUBJECT/S: Liberals’ $80 billion corporate tax handout; income tax; Turnbull always siding with top end of town
 
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW MINISTER FOR FINANCE: Out in the community, in the Senate, in the by-elections and in the general election, the big issue will be tax. Last week Malcolm Turnbull gave billions of dollars to millionaires; this week he wants to give billions of dollars to multinationals and the big banks. This is all in a fortnight's work for the most out-of-touch Prime Minister that Australia has ever had.
 
We don't support these company tax cuts in the Senate and we urge the Senate to reject them again. We don't support these company tax cuts because they're unfair – they come at the expense of our hospitals and schools; they're unaffordable because we've got record debt, which has doubled under the Coalition; and they're unwise, because we just won't get the bang we need from the 80 billion bucks that the Government wants to throw at the biggest businesses in this country. This is about what's affordable, it's about what's fair, and it's about what's best for the economy. On all three fronts, the Government is falling short yet again. What we've got in this country is net debt which has doubled under the Coalition, gross debt which is over half-a-trillion dollars for the first time in our history, and debt is growing at a faster clip per month under this Government than it was under Labor and we had that Global Financial Crisis to deal with.
 
Every day between now and the next election, we will be reminding people that Malcolm Turnbull always stands up for the top end of town at the expense of middle Australia. Malcolm Turnbull's tax policy is to give the lion's share of the benefits to the millionaires and multinationals and the big banks. Labor has a fairer, more responsible alternative, which is to prioritise middle Australia, so that everyone earning up to $125,000 a year gets a bigger, fairer tax cut. We've got targeted tax relief for businesses, which guarantees that they will invest onshore in Australia, in Australian jobs. The contrast couldn't be clearer. The company tax cuts, which Malcolm Turnbull is asking the Senate to pass will mostly spray around offshore and be of little benefit to Australia. True to form, he wants to give $80 billion to the multinationals and the big banks. We have a fairer alternative in the Labor Party and we will be prosecuting that argument from now until the next election. Over to you.
 
JOURNALIST: Do you think Malcolm Turnbull will be a big beneficiary of the tax cuts?
 
CHALMERS: Self-evidently, Malcolm Turnbull would be a big beneficiary, not just of the company tax cuts, but also the personal income tax cuts that went through the Senate last week. It's entirely legitimate for us to point out, as we have been doing, that Malcolm Turnbull as a former investment banker brings a series of influences to his job as the Prime Minister. It's entirely legitimate for us to point out that Malcolm Turnbull always sides with the top end of town over middle Australia. That's what he did last week with the income tax cuts; that's what he's proposing to do this week with the company tax cuts. This is the most out-of-touch Prime Minister that Australia has ever had. He brings to this job, not an affinity with working people, but a preference for the investment bankers of Point Piper. We will be pointing that out in a variety of ways between now and the next election.
 
ENDS