Cameron Caldwell (Fadden, Liberal National Party) | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living Tax Cuts) Bill 2024, and I do this because I want to make a balanced contribution to the debate in this place that so far has been dominated by Labor's smoke and spin. Quite frankly, the introduction of this bill embodies the deception that's been on display from this Labor government. The bill before the House signifies the disdain that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have for hardworking Australians. The Labor leadership campaigned on integrity and transparency in 2022, and yet here we are.

The Prime Minister has broken his promise again. The Prime Minister has looked Australians in the eye and knowingly and repeatedly misled them. He promised Australians that they could trust him to keep his promise because, as he said, 'My word is my bond.' If the Prime Minister can mislead Australians so blatantly, how can anyone believe anything he says ever again? This broken promise is about the Prime Minister's political future and not the long-term benefit of Australians.

The government asked Treasury to look at options, including revising stage 3, on 11 December. But, following that, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer stated on at least a dozen occasions that they hadn't changed their position on stage 3, including when the Prime Minister said, 'We're not reconsidering that position.' This is a political response from the government, not a cost-of-living response. It's obvious that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer aren't serious about Australia's long-term economic prosperity. All they care about is politics, not genuine tax reform and not long-term prosperity.

We can see this clearly in the government's words in the last few days. In a trainwreck interview on Monday night the Treasurer confirmed that the government didn't want to wait until after the Dunkley by-election to announce the changes to the stage 3 package. Let's just get this timing straight. The government finished 2023 having lost the Voice referendum that they were so earnestly depending on. There's a by-election coming up, so what do they do? 'Let's quickly come up with a sugar hit.' Now, I know a thing or two about by-elections, and do you know what the difference is between the Fadden by-election and the Dunkley by-election? The Prime Minister made one visit to Fadden and offered no new announcements in July last year. But for Dunkley the polling must be so bad that they've had to throw out a five-year tax plan in order to save the seat.

So, again, this morning the Prime Minister is calling on the coalition to vote against his own bill. He really only cares about the political wedge, the short-term political gain and the tactics. This Albanese Labor government spent all of last year distracted and completely obsessed by its failed $450 million Voice referendum. Meanwhile, Australians are now thousands of dollars worse off as a result of this government's economic mismanagement. Living standards have absolutely collapsed under this government. Net disposable income is down by almost $8,000 annually. The average Australian has seen the money in their pocket simply disappear. And it's really bad for mortgage holders.

While Australians have spent the past 18 months crying out for help, it's apparently only occurred to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer over summer that Australians are in a cost-of-living crisis. The coalition's position, as it always will be, is that we are committed to lower, simpler and fairer taxes. That's why ultimately we're not going to oppose the reduction of the 19c rate down to 16c. But we remain committed to fighting bracket creep and to supporting aspiration, because strong leaders keep their promises, even when it's hard. A future coalition government will deliver lower, simpler and fairer taxes. We will fight bracket creep and enshrine aspiration in our tax system. We'll reward hard work and support a strong economy where every Australian can get ahead. Importantly, we will unite rather than divide Australians over how much money they earn, either side of a tax bracket. Our tax reforms will always be fully costed and ready to implement. Most importantly, we will keep our promises.

So let's just re-examine what's actually in this bill. Labor's bill makes several changes to the already legislated stage 3 tax cuts, with the $18,200 to $45,000 threshold reduced from 19c to 16c. The flat $45,000 to $200,000 threshold that was going to be taxed at 30c is now going to be split in two: $45,000 to $135,000 at 30c and $135,000 to $190,000 at 37c. And now we're going to have the top tax threshold kicking in at $190,000. Additionally, there are increases in the Medicare levy low-income thresholds, in accordance with CPI. While we know that already 1.8 million Australians will be directly worse off as a result of these measures, including almost 10,000 residents in the electorate of Fadden, these numbers will actually swell in coming years. Labor's abject failure to address bracket creep will soon see the numbers affected rise to over four million. In addition, there will be budget blows. All of this is happening when Australians are already doing it tough under an incompetent Labor government.

Since coming to office, this Prime Minister has made wrong decisions, has been completely distracted and now continues to break promises. The Albanese government has failed to make any real headway in tackling inflation or getting interest rates anywhere near heading back down. Meanwhile, in Labor's first 18 months, personal tax receipts have risen by a record 27 per cent. Headline inflation remains more than 1.6 per cent above the midpoint of the RBA's target band. Most concerningly, food, housing, insurance, health and education costs are all growing much faster than the headline inflation rate. Core inflation measures remain higher than the headline rate, and the domestic inflation is a remarkable 5.4 per cent. Out of these tax cuts, an earner on the average $80,000 wage would receive just another $804 more under Labor's new policy, or $15.46 a week. That's less than one per cent of their annual wage and returns just 10c in every dollar of what they've lost due to cost-of-living pressures in Labor's first 18 months in office. Labor's broken promise entrenches bracket creep in our tax system and increases taxes by $28 billion on more than four million Australians.

What we actually have is a growing list of broken promises. Before the election the Prime Minister promised a $275 reduction in energy prices, no changes to super taxes, an increase in real wages, no changes to franking credits, cheaper mortgages and no changes to the stage 3 tax cuts. The Prime Minister has broken every single one of these promises. So what's next? The Prime Minister misled Australians and he's broken his promise. The consequence is that Australians quite simply cannot trust a single word that the Prime Minister now says. Australians cannot have confidence that the Prime Minister won't break more promises, and they're wondering, 'What's next?'

At the same time the Prime Minister promised he wouldn't touch the stage 3 tax cuts, he promised not to change negative gearing and taxes on the family home. But are these just going to be the next broken promises? If the Prime Minister and Treasurer are happy to promise on more than a hundred occasions to keep stage 3 and then just do what they've done here, what is it that they won't touch? The Prime Minister has been asked a number of times and we never get a straight answer. Is negative gearing next? The Prime Minister has failed to give a straight answer when asked very simply to rule out breaking his promise on negative gearing. The Treasurer was asked on 29 January about plans to make changes to negative gearing, and he said Labor wasn't 'considering it'. Funnily enough, that's what they said that about stage 3 tax cuts. The finance minister, on the Today Show, was asked that same question and said, 'We have no plans to do that.' That's what they said about stage 3 tax cuts. Does this government seriously expect Australians are going to believe a single word they say?

I want to come back to the bracket creep issue. The phone calls I've been receiving to my office and the people I know that I bump into in the street tell me that they are actually sick and tired of the way that their salaries are being characterised by this government. Is it really the case that someone earning $110,000, $130,000 or $150,000 is somehow rich and should be the target of this class warfare game that this Labor government continues to play? Last year, if you earned $150,000, you paid more than $40,000 in tax. If you earned $50,000, you paid $6,000. The people that have been calling me are the ones that are earning that $110,000, $120,000, $130,000 or $150,000. It's a pretty common bracket of income at the moment for lots of families on the Gold Coast. When you're earning that sort of money, you probably try to buy a home, and so over the last few years you've been absolutely belted by the interest rate rises. You get less childcare subsidy, so it costs more for parents to get back to work. You probably try to get the kids into private school education, so you're forking out each term for that. You've probably got private health insurance, so out comes another $500 a month on that. And of course you don't have concession cards, and you miss out on every handout that's ever given.

It's these people in Australia that don't feel like they're getting a fair go, and under this tax plan they can't see the fair go coming anywhere in the near future. I'm always happy for lower taxes in lower brackets, but what better way to drive aspiration than to say, 'You know what, it doesn't matter where you land between $45 grand and $200 grand; you'll only have to pay 30c on the dollar'? That gives a pretty broad range that the Treasurer himself has said was a good way to deal with bracket creep. It was one of the options, but he hasn't taken that option. This government is intent on just the sugar hit, the quick political fix, and is losing the opportunity for long-term reform that would lead to Australians being aspirational. What a wasted opportunity to reform the tax system! Again, this will deliver $15 in 137 days time. The problem for this government is that the bitterness of the broken promise will last long after the sugar hit is forgotten.

People around Fadden—in fact, all over Australia—are asking themselves, 'Is life actually better under this Labor government?' Eighteen months ago, things changed. They were supposed to change for the better, but they didn't. Cost-of-living pressures are biting Australian families, and they don't see a way out. What they really need to be cautious about is this: this Labor government has thrown them in a hole and then waited 18 months to try and give them a hand out of that hole. Australians are rightly suspicious of this Prime Minister and of this Labor government.

See this speech in context