MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE

Mr KENNEDY (Cook) (15:50): That was a really quick history lesson from the member for Solomon, but I thank him nonetheless! I've heard Labor member after Labor member say they're cutting income taxes, and I don't know whether it's that they're deliberately misleading or they just don't understand how their sneaky bracket creep tax works. Every single year, as inflation goes up, the people watching this at home will pay more and more in income tax because the tax brackets aren't inflated by what that inflation goes up by.

Thirty years ago, the top marginal tax rate was $180,000. Had we inflated that tax rate up till today with inflation every day, the top tax rate would be $257,000. Instead, it's down at $190,000.

So those opposite are doing a tax increase on every Australian worker every single year. They're increasing your taxes. This is what the coalition has said that we will do about it: we will give every Australian worker a tax decrease every year for the rest of their lives.

They come in here and say, 'We love workers.' Well, why are we increasing their taxes every single year with a sneaky bracket creep tax? Why can't we be honest about that? Even this one-off tax cut will be eaten up in just six months of Labor's sneaky bracket creep tax.

This is what this government is doing. They're giving you a little with one hand but taking far more with the other. Members have heard me talk about the real struggles going on in the seat of Cook.

If they're happening in the seat of Cook, they're happening right over the rest of Australia. I've met with the St Vincent de Paul team. They're telling me about people sharing housing and about kids sleeping on floors with no mattress and them giving them blankets.

I've spoken about a single mother who I've met who's lost her house and her housing deposit, in absolute tears, because they don't have enough money to actually service their mortgage, let alone pay for school fees or buy food. These are real people I am meeting every day in my electorate. These are the people we want to give a tax cut to every year for the rest of their lives.

They say they're reducing taxes, but what's happening in this actual budget? Taxes are increasing by $80 billion. This is the highest-taxing budget ever in the history of the country.

We are taking more money from hardworking Australians and hardworking businesses than we have ever done in the history of this country. On how bracket creep is working, just to give a couple more figures, today income tax is about 12 per cent of GDP, of everything the economy produces. Through Labor's sneaky bracket creep tax, over the next decade it'll climb from 12 per cent to 15 per cent.

We're going to take a greater share of income tax than has ever been taken in the history of this country. Australians are on track to pay more in income tax than they ever have before in the entire history of the country. So how can members say out of one side of their mouth that they want to protect workers and they want to give them more money when we're going to have income tax higher than it ever has been in the history of the entire country?

Out of all the parliaments we've had in 200 years of this country, we're going to have this government drag us into the highest tax on income. That's what workers earn—income. If we really care about workers, if we genuinely cared about workers, you would join the coalition in indexing the tax brackets, ending bracket creep and giving more money back into workers' pockets.

Right now, we're all getting stories. Every member in this parliament is getting stories from people who can't afford things. I recently had to send a constituent to Wesley Mission to pay their electricity bill—a pensioner who risked having their electricity cut off.

But instead we're gaslit and told it's a tax cut. Well, it's not a tax cut. It's $80 billion of theft—theft from Australians, theft from Australian businesses—and Australians will be poorer for it—so much poorer.

I'd ask the Labor government to join us in what we need to do. Actually, let's really cut taxes. If you really care about it, join us and index tax brackets.

Let's give more workers more of what they deserve.