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

I'll tell you what's humiliating: the shadow treasurer's inability to ask me a question himself. I thank the honourable member for her question. As we said yesterday, the arrangements are consistent with treatment elsewhere in the tax system. But, when we were asked about this yesterday, we did take particular care around our response because we were still considering the amendments that were being circulated in the Senate throughout the day. And that's why we provided the answer that we did at the time. We are and we have been, as the Minister for Housing and the Minister for Finance earlier today have said, we've been aware of these issues and we are working through them in the usual way. We do intend to address the arrangements for jointly owned assets in subsequent legislation. We'll also ensure that the exemption for income from genuine testamentary trusts applies to the minimum tax on capital gains as well so that they work appropriately together.

Now, we've made it clear on a number of occasions—and I think those opposite know this—that it's not unusual at all for big tax reform packages to be legislated with multiple pieces of legislation. The Howard government did it with the GST. The Howard government did it when they made this mistake on the capital gains tax discount in 1999. There were something like 30 pieces of legislation on both occasions. So it's not unusual for there to be consultation. It's not unusual for there to be multiple pieces of legislation, and that's what we are doing in this instance.

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