Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I say to my electorate: I believe in you and your aspiration. Mitchell has always been an aspirational electorate—hardworking, working families, parents looking after their kids, young people getting ahead, all in work, all producing or creating businesses and all innovating. That's why I'm against this budget from a Labor government which has decided to have a war on capital and a war on aspiration. We already have a war on productivity going on in this country by the Labor Party. We have the worst and most onerous industrial relations regime in the world, mitigating against all productivity that we know of in our economy.

In this budget, the government has decided to declare war on capital—your capital. A budget which claims $50 billion to $70 billion more for the government is in no way making your life easier. We see in this budget a war on shares and equities, a war on ETFs and a war of increased taxes. Remember, this is the socialist government that told you that, by keeping a tax bracket, they would be making you better off. In fact, that bracket means the government gets more revenue and you are poorer, and you struggle against the income—and they have the hide to tell you they are arguing for intergenerational fairness. The only take-out of the $70 billion of increased revenue that you get is $250. You would have to be a barking moron to believe that $250, as a return of the government claiming $70 billion of revenue, is somehow intergenerational fairness or equity.

We have the highest income tax rates in the world. We have the most regulated labour market. We have the lowest productivity. And the government has decided, in this war on capital, that the movement of capital in our economy is the problem. Capital is vital. It's not piles of wealth or gold; it is hard-earned capital that belongs to individuals and households that they have the right to invest and reinvest, to have more productive assets in our economy. That makes everybody wealthier. The only people getting wealthier out of this budget are the government. The government is getting the money. If anyone in this economy thinks that the government having $70 billion more is going to make them better off, make their small business easier or make their income better, they've got rocks in their head. I believe Australians aren't buying it. I know my electorate aren't buying it because they are hardworking people. They do the sums.

By not abolishing that income tax bracket, Labor have absolutely locked in more revenue permanently. By taxing all the capital vehicles people have had access to for their own money, to invest in the economy and to make sure that that is used productively—in claiming it for the government, everyone will get poorer. To say to young people today that, when rents will go up because of these changes, when housing will go down, they will somehow have easier access to a house because the government will give them 250 bucks is a direct insult to every young person in this country. I can tell you, they will not buy it when they look closely at this.

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