Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I want to commend the member for Page for this very, very important matter of public importance, and I want to start today with the voice of my constituents Peter and Fiona Devilee. They are business owners in Mildura, in my electorate of Mallee. They are very well known. They have an incredible reputation. Fiona has told me this today:

For 35 years, we have worked hard, taken risks, employed local people, paid our taxes, and responsibly built "off-farm" assets to secure our future, our retirement and the opportunity for the next generation of our family. Every investment we have made has been funded with after-tax income—money that was already taxed before being taken out of our business.

We purchased our business from my father-in-law when it employed just 17 people. Through decades of hard work, reinvestment, long hours, financial pressure, and commitment to our region, we have grown that business to now employ over 75 people while delivering an essential service to our community. We have created jobs, supported families, trained apprentices, paid substantial company and personal taxes, and continually reinvested back into the economy.

Now, the proposed Federal Government CGT changes threaten to significantly erode the very assets and retirement savings we have spent a lifetime building. It is difficult not to feel as though people who have worked hard, created employment, taken business risks, and contributed positively to their communities are being penalised for doing exactly what governments encourage Australians to do—build businesses, create jobs, invest prudently, and become self-sufficient in retirement.

She continues:

At some point, there must be recognition that these are not speculative gains made overnight. They represent decades of sacrifice, responsibility, taxation, and contribution to Australia's economy and regional communities.

I want to state that this couple have not only built a very successful business; they have been huge community contributors. They volunteer; they encourage others to volunteer. They are on boards. They are very invested in their community. I am really saddened by this text from Fiona. She speaks the truth that Labor's politics of envy does not want to hear, does not care about, in its war on aspiration.

I invited the Leader of the Nationals, Matt Canavan, and Deputy Leader of the Nationals and member for Gippsland, Darren Chester, to Mallee on Thursday and Friday last week. It was a tremendous visit with great turnouts and a strong message that the Nationals are the party for regional Australians and that we stand shoulder to shoulder with our farmers. Farming is not a high-income game. Farm returns tend to be capital gains, like increases in farmland values, so capital gains tax changes will hit farmers the hardest. Despite what the government claimed in question time today, based on historical returns, our farmers face an increase in their capital gains tax rate from 23 per cent to 36 per cent under the government's changes. Arguably, Labor's capital gains tax plans will give us some of the highest such taxes in the world, behind only Denmark and Chile.

I have said a few times in this place that some of Labor's bills create a lawyer's picnic. Well, in the case of Labor's tax changes for business, accountants and lawyers will both be cracking open the bubbly. During Labor's cost-of-living crisis and their power bill price spikes, Labor are hiking compliance costs, because so many small businesses will now need legal and/or financial advice on what to do with their assets and with their businesses.

As I said earlier today in the House, Labor's tax changes have no mandate, no permission, from the Australian people. It's not like John Howard's goods and services tax. Labor's— (Time expired)

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