Leon Rebello (McPherson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the appropriation bills at a time when Australia stands at a crossroads. Across the world, we are seeing uncertainty, instability and conflict. The global order is shifting. Supply chains are fragile. The strategic environment in our region is deteriorating. Social trust is under pressure, and families are being stretched. Businesses are questioning whether this is still the country where effort is rewarded and risk is worth taking.

Australia itself is not experiencing conflict, but we are living in a world that demands preparedness, discipline and leadership. This should have been the moment when the government used its time in office to strengthen our economy, harden our national resilience, rebuild trust in our institutions and prepare Australia for the challenges ahead. Instead, Labor has turned this moment into tougher times for Australians. This is a government with a leadership deficit. It talks about responsibility but refuses to lead by example. It talks about fairness but divides Australians against each other. It talks about security but does not fund the capability required to keep Australians safe. It talks about aspiration while punishing those who work hard, save hard and take risks.

Australians are not stupid. They know what's happening in their own lives. They know whether the weekly shop costs more and whether the mortgage is harder to pay. They know whether their rent has gone up and whether their business is being buried under taxes, wages, regulation and uncertainty. And they know that, after years of Labor government, life has not become easier; it has, in fact, become harder. The first failing of this budget is economic. Before the latest global instability and conflict had fully flowed through to prices, inflation was already going the wrong way. The ABS reported annual CPI inflation at 4.6 per cent in March. That's up from 3.7 per cent the month before. Interest rates remain painful for Australian families, and the RBA cash rate is at 4.35 per cent, which means Australians are paying more, borrowing more, saving less and falling further behind. Yet what is Labor's answer—more taxes, more spending, more debt, more intervention, more government. And because Labor cannot manage money, it's coming after yours.

This budget attacks capital gains, negative gearing and discretionary trusts. It limits negative gearing. It changes capital gains tax arrangements. It introduces a minimum tax on discretionary trusts. These are not abstract accounting changes; they hit people who have done the right thing—small business owners, mum-and-dad investors, retirees, young savers and families who are all trying to build a future without depending on government. This is not tax reform; it's an assault on aspiration.

I'd like to read to the House a message that I received from a local business owner. These are their words, not mine. They say:

Hey Leon, I'm sure you are hearing this plenty but this budget killed me. I've already taken steps to close a new business that I was launching here and I'm shifting it home to NZ. The CGT greed and attack on bucket companies is the last straw. I know I'm not the only one. Both of my mentors left Australia 3 years ago and warned me. I went to Dubai last year after Albo tried to push for unrealised gains tax and I met with an accounting firm. When the accountants entered the room they said "sit down we know why you are here, every new customer since your budget has been an Australian" This Government has destroyed business opportunity. Wages are through the roof and now the shameless grab for 47% has broken me. I have been on call 24/7 for 20 years while I built a business and jobs. We were already taxed too much but I stayed anyway. I'm furious. If this gets through my wife and I are likely to pull the kids from school and start again in NZ. This is just greed and mismanagement on an epic scale.

This is the human consequence of this budget. This is what happens when government treats aspiration as a problem to be taxed, rather than a virtue to be encouraged. A business that shuts its doors employs no-one. A family that leaves Australia takes with it skills, capital, jobs and confidence. A young person who sees effort punished will eventually stop believing that the system is fair. Government does not create wealth. Businesses do, families do, workers do, entrepreneurs do and investors do. Labor's role is to create the conditions for them to succeed, but Labor's instinct is, quite frankly, the opposite—to regulate more, tax more, spend more and then act surprised when ambition leaves our shores.

The second failing of this budget is defence and national security. For years now, the Prime Minister and the defence minister have told Australians that we face the most complex and testing strategic circumstances since the end of the Second World War. On that they are right, but words are not capability, announcements are not deterrents and press releases alone do not defend a country. The government points to additional defence spending over the decade, but the question every member of this place should be asking is really quite simple: can Australia stand on its own two feet under this government? The answer is no.

Our alliances matter. ANZUS matters. AUKUS matters. The Five Eyes matter. Our partnerships with like-minded democracies matter. But partnerships alone are not enough. We must have the domestic preparedness to defend our national interest. We must have sovereign industry, fuel security and a defence force that's properly equipped, properly supported and ready for the realities of the decade ahead. This budget does not meet that test. It does not provide the urgent, credible and meaningful plan required to keep Australians safe. It does not move with the seriousness that the strategic environment demands, and it does not send the message to our region, nor to our allies or our adversaries, that Australia is prepared to do what is necessary.

My view is clear. Defence spending must rise to at least three per cent of GDP. We need a whole-of-nation national security defence strategy. We need serious investment in capability, and we need to back the Australian businesses, including on the Gold Coast, that are building the next generation of defence technology, not punish them with tax settings that drive them offshore and disincentivise their need to innovate. Fuel security is national security. Economic resilience is national security. Sovereign manufacturing is national security. Social cohesion is national security. The government does not seem to understand that all of these things are connected.

The third failing of this budget is social cohesion. Australia's social fabric is being pulled totally apart, and we are seeing this in our electorates across the country. This is a government that talks about inclusion, but it plays the politics of division. Right now, it is pitting young Australians against older Australians. It pits renters against mum-and-dad investors. It pits workers against small businesses. It pits people who have served and people who have sacrificed against those who are told that their challenges can only be solved by government—and not just by government but by government punishing someone else. That is not leadership; that is division dressed up as fairness.

Labor's tax changes are presented as 'intergenerational fairness', but let's call them what they are. They are intergenerational fraud. Young Australians who cannot afford to get a home are doing the responsible thing. They are saving. They are investing. They are trying to build a future through shares, ETFs, small businesses or other assets. But now Labor wants to punish them for doing exactly what previous generations were encouraged to do—work, save, invest and get ahead.

The same is true in housing and migration. Migration has been one of Australia's great success stories when it is well managed, when it is in the national interest and when infrastructure and housing keep pace. But under Labor, migration is running ahead of housing, it is running ahead of infrastructure and it is running ahead of essential services. Australia is on track to take in around two million migrants by the end of Labor's first two terms while homebuilding remains nowhere near what Australians need or what new migrants to Australia need. That does not strengthen social cohesion; it strains it. It puts pressure on rents. It puts pressure on roads. It puts pressure on schools, hospitals and communities. It makes it harder for young Australians to buy their first home and harder for families to find a rental. It diminishes the very settlement success that made Australia a strong multicultural nation. A government serious about social cohesion would not govern by wedge. It would not tell one group of Australians that their hardship is caused by another group of Australians. It would, however, bring people together around shared values, responsibility, contribution, fairness, opportunity and respect for the country that we are all blessed to call home.

In my first speech in this parliament I spoke about the need to look beyond the next election cycle and ask what Australia should look like in 100 years from now. That is the test of serious government—not what headline can be won today, not what political advantage can be seized tomorrow but what kind of country we leave to those who come after us. This budget fails that test, but there is another way.

The coalition have put forward a plan for a freer, fairer and better Australia. We will end Labor's inflation tax through a tax-back guarantee, indexing income tax thresholds to inflation so that Australians can keep more of what they earn. That is generational tax reform. We will link migration to housing supply so our intake is sustainable and in the national interest. And we will put Australians first by ensuring that essential welfare and the NDIS are preserved for Australian citizens. We will establish a future generations fund to bank resource windfalls, pay down debt and build national infrastructure. And we will deliver more fuel, more storage and more security. We will back small-business investment with an instant asset write-off of up to $50,000, and strengthen Australia's security with a whole-of-nation national security strategy and defence spending of at least three per cent of GDP. That's the difference between short-term politics and long-term responsibility.

Labor believes that government should take more, that it should spend more and that it should control more. We on this side of the House, the coalition, believe that Australians should be trusted to keep more of what they earn and that Australians should be trusted to own their homes, to build their businesses, to defend their country and to shape their own future. Australia is not a nation that is destined for decline. We are not a people who need to be managed by government into lower expectations. We are a country of builders, workers, families, migrants, entrepreneurs, volunteers and quiet Australians who ask for very little but give so much.

Our task, as I said in my first speech, is not to manage decline but to shape destiny. It's to restore the promise that effort will be rewarded, that freedom will be protected and that opportunity is not the privilege of a few but the inheritance of all. This budget does not do that. The coalition will.

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