Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Skills and Training) Share this | Hansard source

To my fellow Australians: in speaking on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Building a Stronger and Fairer Superannuation System) Bill 2026—for those in the gallery, I want to draw your attention to the very carefully crafted title of this bill, and I want you to focus on the word 'fairer'. I'm going to make a contribution, and I'm going to ask you to adjudicate from the gallery as to whether or not, at the completion of my small contribution, you think that you can make a judgement—let's pretend you're going to be down here voting on this bill—that this is in any way fairer. That's what I'm going to ask you to consider.

I know from a business perspective, having been a business owner before coming to this place, that only too often, when the Australian Labor Party run out of their money, they'll come looking for yours. Superannuation is one of those little buckets that is just too tempting to those on the other side for them to keep their hands off it. You were promised, with the creation of super—your wealth, your money—that it would stay with you and it would never be raided. What you are not hearing from those on the other side during this debate is that this bill is a revenue raiser, and its intention is to raise over $2 billion in the forward estimates. They are snipping at your superannuation and they are masking it as being fair. 'It's fair to take your money. It's fair to raid the superannuation system. It's just fair.' I tell you this is anything but fair. A good opposition is vital because, if they had had their way, it would have been much, much worse.

The largest contributor to GDP in my electorate is agriculture. They're humble people—sophisticated with technology use, but humble people. I'm going to give you an example of what would have happened if it weren't for us intervening. I'm going to give you an example of a simple farmer, Joan, whose husband, Ron, passed away. She's got a couple of boys and they have a small 100-acre farm. The farm was handed down to them from Joan's husband and, before that, it was Ron's parents' farm. There are many stories like this across my electorate. Those opposite will have you believe that it only touches half a percent, that it's only the rich and the extravagant that are going to be affected. A couple of years ago that farm was worth about $1 million. Today it's worth over $3 million. Back in the late eighties, there was an accounting practice in the district where the accountants dealt with succession planning for farms and transferring family assets. They put stuff into self-managed super funds. Joan was going to get caught out here; this was an unintended consequence of this bill until we made sure that it was retracted.

They farm their 100 acres. They grow potatoes; they grow carrots—it's very labour-intensive. They've got high input costs with fuel, fertiliser, water and irrigation licensing. They drive old machinery because there is not enough money, after they pay their expenses, to update the machinery they have on the place. It's ageing, as the margins from the retailers become less and less. They have a net profit of about $50,000 a year after expenses, but they're asset rich. They have an asset in their self-managed super fund which is $3 million. If your place used to be worth $1 million but is now worth $3 million, that's $2 million in unrealised capital gain. Under this bill, these guys are saying: 'Let's clip your ticket, and we're going to do it under the presumption of fairness, because it's fair for us to take your money. In fact, we're going to take that capital gain. We're going to tax it at the rate proposed in this bill, which is 30 per cent—$2 million at 30 per cent is $600,000. Write out a cheque to the tax office.' Labor is calling that fair!

Where does Joan get the $600,000 from? She doesn't have it; she earns $50,000 a year. She's flat out putting food on the table. She's not eligible for any Centrelink payments or any government support because she doesn't meet the asset test, so the only thing she can do is sell the farm. 'But it's only half a per cent; wave it through. Don't worry, because we're doing it under the auspices of fairness.'

It reminds me a poem, 'First They Came' by the Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller. This is an adaptation of his very famous poem:

First they came for the rich, and I didn't speak out—because I wasn't rich.

Then they came for the self-funded retirees, and I never reached out—because I wasn't a self-funded retiree.

Then they came for the trusts, and I never spoke out—because I didn't own a trust.

Then they came for the working class, and I never spoke out—because I wasn't working class.

Then they came for me—and there was no-one left.

The original poem was penned almost a hundred years ago, but it's still very salient today when we look at the fairness test of what this government is building. They're running out of money. It's a revenue-raising bill. It creates $2 billion over the forward estimates. At face value, they're saying, 'Only the wealthy are going to pay for this, and we call that fair.' At the same time, they're spending.

My advice to the Labor Party is don't bring to this place bills that cost people money. Bring to this place spending reductions. Spending has expanded under this government to around 26.4% of GDP. That's over $727 billion in total payments, well above the long-run average. That means they are spending at a rate much greater than previous governments. And what's happening?

There's a thing called structural spending. The spending happening under their watch is what economists would refer to as spending that is being baked into our system. That cannot be unpicked. That's spending on things like the National Disability Insurance Scheme, health costs and interest costs. They continue to outpace the revenue that we are bringing in in the form of receipts. So, it is incumbent on them to bring bills to this House that raid your superannuation to compensate for their incompetent spending, and they're disguising it as being fair.

The coalition and the community pressure forced Labor to abandon the taxation of unrealised capital gains. That's something that we're extremely proud of. This is a government that's been found out and is now retreating under the pressure, thanks to sustained scrutiny from our opposition, from the superannuation sector, from the small-business sector and from everyday Australians. We forced Labor to step back from the most outrageous elements of this proposal.

This was not a proposal that was just aimed at hurting retirees. This was aimed at hurting future generations, stealing the future of a young Australian away from them without their knowledge or even their understanding. The original design to tax unrealised gains represented a fundamental break with longstanding principles of the Australian tax system. To propose taxing paper gains, particularly in volatile asset classes, was not a minor tweak. This was a structural shift that would have set a dangerous precedent across the entire tax base. This was a desperate government, running out of money, looking for ways to create new revenue streams.

In an inflationary environment being made worse by this Treasurer, and his willingness to pour debt petrol on the inflation fire, failing to index households was a straight-out silent tax hike. Over time, more Australians would have been captured, not because they were wealthier in real terms but because inflation eroded the value of the threshold and the bracket crept by design. It's flawed policy. Basically, we made sure, with the support of some Labor luminaries, in the way of Bill Kelty, Paul Keating and Sally McManus—none of them suggested that the indexation on that $3 million should not be adjusted. It wasn't a flawed policy. It was a sneaky trick to make more money and to capture hardworking Australians.

At the last election, Australians were not presented with a policy to tax unrealised capital gains in super. They were not told that longstanding superannuation settings would be fundamentally altered. They were not warned that indexation would be stripped. Promises matter in a democracy. Major structural changes should be put clearly and transparently to the Australian people. Instead, this proposal appeared out of nowhere, with limited consultation and a rushed legislative timetable.

I remember, early on, Labor had a round table. The best and brightest minds were brought. I don't remember this being an outcome of those best and brightest minds, where we say: 'Let's raid super. Let's raid the wealthy. Let's call it a robin hood tax and take from the wealthy and give to others.' It's disguised as that, but really it's a revenue raiser.

We have a government that can't be trusted. We were promised by Labor—by this treasurer—that they'd beaten inflation and high interest rates. Well, that's not the case. The inflation dragon is breathing down their necks. Normally, from a business perspective and for most on this side, we have buffers in our businesses. We have retained earnings. When things get tough and when economic choppy waters present themselves, as they do through the economic cycle—whether it's every five years, seven years or whatever it might be, you can predict when you're going to have those choppy waters—prudent businesses make sure they've got capacity to deal with those choppy times.

Well, fellow Australians, can I say that there are choppy times in front of us in the international geopolitical space in the Middle East, and we should have a management that has got that capacity to deal with the buffer. Instead, we have a very poor government whose economic rationalism is to provide the Australian public with deficits as far as the eye can see. That doesn't mean a lot to people who don't think they're going to have to pay the money back, but I'll tell you how it affects you when you're backing a government that has got deficits as far as the eye can see.

There's an inconvenient truth that one day the people that we borrow our money from want that money back. The interest rates also get higher and higher and higher. To tickle my fellow Australians' interests as to how much interest we're serving on debt at the moment, it's just under $30 billion a year. As that debt gets higher, that interest component gets higher. When you say, 'Well, that debt doesn't mean anything to me,' it may not mean anything to you until you're not getting that hospital or until you're not getting that road. This is a government who has lost its way when it comes to bringing fairer legislation to this House. I'd ask this government to rethink.

See this speech in context