Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I wouldn't have given another question to the member for Goldstein either.

He did. I thank the honourable member for her question. When it comes to the tax arrangements in the legislation, what we are proposing is not different to what we've seen when it comes to other tax legislation. I know that there's been yet another beat up, today, about this from those who want the broken status quo in housing and tax to continue to lock young people out of housing. But the truth is—the fact is—that it's not unusual for tax laws to work this way or for definitions to be finalised by legislative instrument, which can be disallowed by the parliament.

I'll give you some examples. Under the Howard government there were the debt equity rules, subordinate rules overriding general allocation of debt or equity status. A similar example is superannuation valuation rules. Governments of both persuasions have done it this way. Foreign investment reform from Prime Minister Morrison left a lot of details and definitions to the subordinate laws. So it's not unusual for legislation to be progressed in this way.

I don't remember governments or treasurers of other political persuasions being subjected to the same sort of feedback about these standard arrangements. You had no problem with it when Mr Howard did it. You had no problem with it when Mr Morrison did it. This is the way that—

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