Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's a saying often attributed to Benjamin Franklin that nothing is certain in life except death and taxes. Thanks to the Albanese government's shameful budget, we now get to experience both those certainties at the same moment. Buried in this budget is a shameful new 30 per cent minimum tax on discretionary testamentary trusts. Let's call it what it is. That is a death tax. It will hit some of the families least able to afford it, including families in my electorate caring for children and grandchildren with profound disabilities who use these structures to provide security and care after they are gone.

Nobody voted for this. This government went to the election promising Australians that these taxes would not be implemented under their watch. This budget is built on broken promises and punishing aspiration. We've got new taxes on investment, new taxes on enterprise, new taxes on family assets, new taxes on the future—and to what benefit? How does this help young Australians? How is having more debt, higher taxes, less housing, higher rents and less reward for effort going to help them? Australia succeeds when hard work is rewarded, not punished. Australians don't want carve-outs to the Labor Party's toxic taxes. They want to have them axed, and that's exactly what the coalition is going to fight for.