SLOMOS OWN GOAL REPORT WEAKENS THE CASE FOR BIG BUSINESS COMPANY TAX CUTS

In a spectacular own goal, Treasury analysis commissioned by the Treasurer and released late on Friday afternoon, has weakened the case for big business tax cuts.

We now know why the Treasurer has refused to release this report for the last two months it lampoons a central Turnbull Government argument in favour of big business tax cuts.

The Treasury report clearly demonstrates that for larger companies with turnover of more than $50 million the same threshold of the Turnbull Governments unlegislated big business tax cuts - workers are not remunerated in line with their productivity.

However, while the relative labour productivity and relative real wages of the $2-$10 million and $10-$50 million size class follow each other closely (blue and red lines), there is a disconnect between labour productivity and real wages for the largest size class (grey lines). On average through the period, the more than $50 million turnover category was 2.1 times as productive as the $0-$2 million category, but paid average real wages only 1.5 times as much.

[Page 57, Analysis of Wages Growth, Treasury]

This comes on the back of OECD analysis earlier this year that showed that Australia lagged most other OECD economies when it comes to workers being compensated for their productivity.

Scott Morrison gave a speech based on this Treasury analysis to the Business Council of Australia on Thursday 28 September this year.

Mr Morrison refused to publicly release this analysis despite media requests and calls from the Opposition [see attached Bowen FOI request]

Its now very clear to see why the Treasurer sat on this report.

And in a reminder that the Prime Minister and Treasurer are rarely on the same page, this same Treasury report was used by Mr Morrison back in September to deny growth in income inequality and yet today the Prime Minister has acknowledged that there's always going to be areas of inequality and disadvantage and you've got to address those. [TURNBULL, INTERVIEW WITH ABC AM, FRIDAY 8 DECEMBER 2017]