Malcolm Turnbull’s government wants people to work, save and invest

THE Turnbull Government has scrapped Tony Abbott’s “morbid joke” to make “taxes lower, simpler and fairer”.

Turnbull government’s new mantra

THE Turnbull Government has scrapped Tony Abbott’s “morbid joke” to make taxes “lower, simpler and fairer”.

Today, Treasurer Scott Morrison unveiled the new manta that will be applied to tax reform in Australia, that the system would help people to “work, save and invest”.

During a press conference, Mr Morrison seemed to bury the former Prime Minister’s pledge for “lower, simpler, taxes”, which former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello once described as a “morbid joke”.

While Mr Morrison said he believed in lower, simpler, fairer taxes, he believed it was more important to think about how this would be achieved, and for what purpose.

“Tax reform is not an end in itself ... what is it going to deliver to the Australian people?”

Mr Morrison said he was only interested in reforms that would help people to work, save and invest.

“Working, saving and investing has made this country what it is today,” Mr Morrison said.

He said that Australians needed to know that the tax system was working for them, not against them.

His comments came after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull denied reports he had suspended the tax white paper process started by former treasurer Joe Hockey.

Fairfax reported Mr Turnbull last week stopped all work on the tax white paper, weeks before it was due to deliver the first preliminary report.

The decision reportedly came as a shock to bureaucrats who have spent almost a year working on the biggest review of taxation ever undertaken in Australia.

Mr Turnbull said on his Facebook page that a story in Fairfax media “is not true”.

“We have not stopped work on the tax white paper — quite the contrary, as I said earlier in the week tax reform is at the centre of our efforts to make Australia a more innovative, productive and prosperous economy,” he said.

There have been more than a thousand submissions and at least one stakeholder has spent $500,000 on tax advice to inform its submission.

This story in the The Sydney Morning Herald is not true. We have not stopped work on the tax white paper - quite the...

Posted by Malcolm Turnbull on Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Mr Morrison said a preliminary report would be released when the government was in a position to release it, but declined to say whether this would be within the next six to eight weeks.

He said work on the tax white paper would continue, and neither the scope of the paper or the process had changed.

“The timetable was very broad and not fixed,” he said.

In response to a report in the The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday, Mr Morrison confirmed he was interested in lower, simpler and fairer taxes but did not comment further on whether there would be tax cuts.

In The Daily Telegraph, Mr Morrison said the Turnbull Government would take a different approach to kickstarting the economy, rather than simply “stopping” things like the carbon and mining taxes.

“As a principle of people keeping more of their own money … yes I believe you can,” he said.

Mr Morrison vowed to return Australia to an era of personal and family income tax cuts, saying the reward for effort had all but vanished from the country.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann also confirmed the Midyear Economic and Fiscal Outlook would be delivered in December.

Assistant Innovation Minister Wyatt Roy said it was important Australia was a low-taxing economy to lure entrepreneurs from all over the world.

“We are not going to have the jobs we need if we tax ourselves out of prosperity,” he told the Nine Network.

— With AAP