Luke Howarth urges Malcolm Turnbull to drop big business tax cuts

A Liberal National MP has urged Malcolm Turnbull to stop pursuing his signature tax policy if is again rejected by the Senate.

Mr Howarth said the Prime Minister should listen to community sentiment.

Liberal National MP Luke Howarth has urged Malcolm Turnbull to drop his pursuit of big business tax cuts if is rejected once more in the Senate.

Mr Howarth, the member for the marginal Brisbane seat of Petrie, said the Prime Minister should listen to community sentiment and backdown on the policy, after the LNP suffered a 9 per cent swing in the Longman by-election.

He argued it would be a mistake to campaign on reducing taxes for businesses with a turnover of more than $50 million at the next election.

“We should try once again to get it through the Senate, if the Senate reject it again then drop it and move on,” Mr Howarth told Sky News.

“The company tax cuts for big business — which is what Labor has been campaigning on, banks and so forth with turnovers in the billions of dollars — doesn’t kick in for years to come anyway so I don’t know why we would want to take it to the next election quite frankly if we can’t get it through the Senate now.”

He said jettisoning the policy would take away Labor’s campaign message that the Coalition was giving money to big banks rather than hospitals.

“Even though that is untrue because hospital funding is going up and it will so every year for the next few years,” he said.