Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

Absolutely. So what's different in this bill? Unrealised capital gains were removed, thanks to the pressure from the coalition and others, and that's a good thing. The government will not be taxing unrealised capital gains, but, by gosh, we had to work hard to get that taken out. Instead, a 30 per cent tax will apply only to realised earnings, actual cash profit for balances between $3 million and $10 million. To address concerns of bracket creep, the thresholds will now be indexed.

But there are new risks in this new legislation. The removal of the effective death tax exemption creates uncertainty for families at precisely the moment they are most vulnerable. Surviving spouses who rely on superannuation balances to maintain stability after the loss of a partner could face additional tax complexity and reduced security. Total and permanent disability benefit recipients are another cohort that must be considered carefully. These are Australians who, through no fault of their own, are no longer able to work. Their superannuation is a lifeline. Any change that increases volatility, reduces predictability or complicates access to those funds carries real human consequence.

There are low-income superannuation offset increases, and they are welcomed. But they are modest, and they don't go anywhere near addressing the cost-of-living pressures—and the cost-of-living pressures, at the moment, for Australian people are manifest. Real wages are going down. Interest rates are going up. Inflation's going up. Energy costs are going up. And why is all this happening? It's happening because of bad policy. Bad policy means that people's standard of living is going backwards, and people's standard of living won't improve unless we get some good policy. Good policy needs to be about growing the economy. A future offset adjustment in superannuation does little to relieve all the cost-of-living stresses now, and the government must tackle inflation at its source.

Labor has a spending problem, not a revenue and tax problem. I heard this debate yesterday. It is relevant, when Labor is proposing a tax, for the coalition to try and shed some light on what it wants to spend the tax on. It's people's money. It's people's own hard work. And, if that money goes towards the Victorian government not managing it properly—on infrastructure bills—and that money finds its way towards corrupt activities, then that is relevant to this debate, because we're talking about taxing people's superannuation accounts. It's their hard work. Where that money goes is relevant, important and absolutely critical.

In my state of Victoria, we're incredibly worried about how much we're being taxed—and this is another tax. But not only are we worried about how much we're being taxed; we're worried about how that money is being spent, and that's a right thing to worry about. Geoffrey Watson SC, in his report on CFMEU corruption, said that the Victorian taxpayers—and the Australian taxpayers, because a lot of the money goes into the Victorian government from the federal government—have had to pay $30 billion extra for infrastructure payments because of corruption in the CFMEU. That is relevant when we're talking about taxation.

Today, it's about superannuation balances above $3 million, but what's it going to be about tomorrow? What's the next threshold? What's the next asset in the attempt to claw more money from Australians? I can't support this bill, and we in the coalition will be holding the government to account on the bad policy, including this policy, that is failing to grow the economy and causing cost-of-living pressures to escalate. We will also be holding the government to account, when they do tax people, on whether the money is spent correctly and wisely, because it's the people's money, not the government's money.

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