Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

I want to talk about this week's budget. I want to talk about a couple of measures in it that I think are going to be really damaging to our prosperity as a nation. But I really want to remind those opposite that this budget was built on misleading the Australian public. We know that just a year ago the Prime Minister was asked over 50 times—it's well documented—whether he would change the policies of his government in relation to capital gains tax, in relation to negative gearing and in relation to trusts, and over 50 times he said no, he wouldn't. It's exactly that type of behaviour and that type of language and then immediately doing in his first budget exactly the opposite to what he said he would that brings great shame upon himself and great shame upon the government that everyone over there represents, because it is a real mistrust you now have with the Australian public.

The first one I want to talk about is the capital gains tax. We now have one of the highest capital gains taxes in the world. We won't notice it this week. We won't notice it necessarily this year. But this is going to change the behaviour of Australians in the sense of taking a risk. As someone said to me yesterday, Labor wants you to take the risk, and they'll take the reward. That is how this is going to filter through. People will not, because of the taxes, be prepared to take the risk that they once would when they're building businesses, they're building asset values et cetera. I have so much more to say, but anyway I'll sit down.

See this speech in context