Senator the Hon Mathias Cormann

Queensland families wanting to get ahead need their senators to vote for lower, more competitive business taxes for all businesses – irrespective of their size.

To get ahead, Queenslanders today and in the future want to get a good, secure, well-paid job. They want the opportunity to pursue a career, which helps ensure they can provide a good life for their families.

New, secure, well-paid jobs don’t grow on trees. Not in Queensland and not anywhere else in Australia.

They are created and paid for by more successful, more profitable businesses.

About nine out of every 10 working Queenslanders work in a private sector business.

Many of those private sector businesses are calling on the Senate to pass in full the Government’s proposed business tax cut to 25 per cent for all businesses.

This is not just about them. It is about the opportunity to grow their businesses so they can hire more Queenslanders not just in Brisbane but across the state.

If the government takes less money out of every business, those businesses can invest more.

More investment means the business can grow more, hire more workers and pay them better wages.

This is important because countries all around the world have cut taxes for their businesses – the US to 21 per cent and the UK to 17 per cent; even France is moving from 33 to 25 per cent.

If we don’t lock in a tax rate in Australia more in line with the global average (of about 25 per cent across the OECD), we will miss out on investment, growth, jobs and higher wages.

This is an opinion piece published in the Courier Mail on 22 February 2018.