Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

It's been just 11 hours since the House rose and my contribution was interrupted by the adjournment, but, in that ensuing time, we've had many businesses face the awkward decision as to whether in fact they will continue to operate or not. Australia's small businesses are shutting at a disturbing rate: 40,000 microbusinesses lost in four years as wages that they have to pay go up. Admittedly, the workers are getting less bang for their buck, but tax reforms and calls for a three-day week just mount and small business is doing it so very tough.

What I fear is that those opposite don't understand or appreciate the hardships of small business because in many cases they have not run one. They've run picket lines out in front of them and they've run them into the ground, but they haven't actually run a small business to save themselves, and they don't understand and appreciate the complexities facing the operators of those many, many small businesses. I ran one for nearly a decade, with a couple of others, and it's tough. Often you take home less pay yourself than you are in fact paying your employees, your workers.

As to workers, yes, we saw the independent commission this week give a wage rise to Australia's lowest paid workers—bearing in mind Australia has one of the highest minimum wages anywhere. But I say to those workers: do not be fooled, because once you take away the power bills, the rent or mortgage costs, the grocery bills and the fuel costs, you're taking home less. We as a coalition—we as Nationals and Liberals—want people to keep more of what they earn because it's their money. The other side treat wages, superannuation and all of these things as though it is the government, the taxpayers, paying for it, when in actual fact it's the small-business owners and operators who are being slammed every day of the week.

The national economy has slowed to a crawl, and the budget has not helped. You've got people who are running businesses who are saying that this government is waging a war on work and on small business. We had the small-business minister even talk about those businesses which accepted money during COVID as if somehow they were dodgy. The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released just this week show the economy grew by a weaker-than-expected 0.3 per cent in the March quarter amidst declining productivity. It was only on 27 June 2025 that the consultation process was opened on a productivity roundtable. Well, how did that go when we see that productivity in every shape, way and form is being smashed by this federal budget? Then we had, of course, the Treasurer out there trying to explain it away and saying: 'Nothing to see here. All is well. All is good. The economy is growing.' Well, we should be booming. Despite the worldwide headwinds, including the war in Iran, we should be, as a nation, booming, but we are being slowed by bad policies and by a bad government, and small businesses have had enough because they are copying it in the neck every day in every way.

We have heard from people such as Mark McCrindle, a social demographer, who said small businesses were being confronted with a 'war on work, an attack on risk takers and a target on the back of the entrepreneur'. Once we take away that entrepreneurial spirit, that yearning to get out there, follow your dream, take a spark of an idea and turn it into a small-business success story, we pull the rug from underneath the economy. Small business—make no mistake—runs the economy. Small business employs the majority of Australians.

This government believes in a big Public Service, although they're taking away 111 Department of Veterans' Affairs staff, which is reprehensible. They believe that, because there's a bigger public service, they're doing their job. A bigger government with more control over people is how this government operates, and it's wrongheaded. It's absolutely wrongheaded.

Now, Mr McCrindle had this to say:

It is already a challenging environment for small and medium enterprise, and the ones doing it tough are the smallest businesses.

There are 40,000 fewer of those micro businesses today than there were four years ago—

40,000 fewer! Do we think that the government, that the Minister for Small Business, that the Treasurer, that the Prime Minister no less think to themselves when they're formulating a budget: 'What can we do to help small businesses? What can we do to ensure that that engine room of the economy can prosper, can thrive?' They can barely survive with the policies that have been put out under this cruel, mean spirited, wrongheaded budget. What we've got here is Mr McCrindle adding:

They are the ones—

he's talking about microbusinesses—

most impacted by these suite of changes, whether it's (capital gains tax) reform or minimum wage increases.

Here's an interesting statistic just to dwell on:

New insolvency data shows 281 small businesses shut their doors in the five days after the federal budget alone.

That's 281 people who may well now be forced to live on welfare, 281 people who've given up the dream of running their own business, 281 people potentially—probably more—who've lost that hope, who've lost that drive, who've lost that zeal, that energy, that desire to get out of bed in the morning and make this country a better one. Shame on the government for this budget. It's an absolute disgrace. It should be very much looked at and reviewed.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister Assisting for Fisheries and Forestry) | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to give a quick shout-out to the kids up in the gallery as I wave to them. These students—I'm sure, looking at their age—have been taught about grammar and these things. I'm sure by now they know a verb is a main word in a sentence that expresses an action or occurrence, a state of being. There is, of course, one verb that's not allowed to be used in this place. Take, for example, the students up there. I reckon, if they were talking to their teacher and gave the teacher an assurance that they would do a particular thing after recess with every intention of doing completely the opposite after recess, the teacher would bring them in and use the verb and say, 'Little Johnny, you "what-ed" to me.' But, of course, we're not allowed to use it in this place. Quite frankly, it's causing frustration because, I've got to tell you, outside the crystal gates of this building, people are using that verb and many more besides. Do you know why? It's because they tuned in before the last election because they never want to get it wrong.

In my view, electorates never get it wrong. But the fundamental, if you like, bargain between electorates and those seeking election is that you'll be straight up and fair dinkum with them before an election so that they can make that decision in good faith. Why do I say that this is a 'bad faith budget'? It's a bad faith budget and it's a bad faith set of tax changes because the architects of this change, or changes, looked squarely down the barrel, speaking into the households and loungerooms of millions of Australians in the lead-up to the election, and said not once, not twice, but more than 50 times, 'No, no, no, we don't propose any changes to property taxes or the like.'

Now, I've got to give former prime minister Bill Shorten his due. He was looking to establish many of these changes, but he had the honesty, the guts, to put it to the Australian people. Do you remember the current energy minister, who was then shadow Treasurer, saying—it's in fact my favourite quote from the energy minister—'If you don't like it, don't vote for it.' And guess what? The people of Australia didn't. That led to poor Mr Shorten going through some very difficult times, but the truth is that he was honest with the Australian people.

Personally, I think those opposite have learnt the lesson that, if they're straight up and fair dinkum about what they want to do before an election, they won't win elections. It's a change of strategy. The strategy now is to say, 'We won't do certain things,' with the very clear intention that they will do certain things. We've seen the Prime Minister in question time. When he's now asked about yet further property and other changes—for example, taxing the family home—he rules it out. But could anyone take the word of this man, the Prime Minister of Australia, given what he sought to do in this budget?

Let's be clear: these are the most significant changes to Australia's tax law that were never put to the Australian people—full stop. When John Howard established the GST, he took that to an election. When former prime minister Shorten proposed changes, he took that to an election. These changes were never put to the Australian people. The Prime Minister wonders why, when his face is splashed on the television at a sporting event, the crowd boos. It's because he's broken that fundamental agreement that sits between those that are elected and those that elect members in and to this place.

I've got to tell you that almost everything about these changes is rotten. It's not just the fact that they weren't socialised with the Australian people before the election. It's not just the fact that the likelihood of them occurring was denied not once but 50 times. I'll tell you what else is rotten about it. Those opposite, almost in an Orwellian doublespeak, seek to say that the very measures that will strip aspiration away are doing the opposite—that they're measures that will assist our nation with its endeavours for aspiration. In another example of Orwellian doublespeak, they say this will help young people into homes at the very time these measures do quite the opposite.

Let's talk about young people and homeownership, which, thankfully, all sides of this place, I think, agree is a social good. We want more young Australians owning a stake in this great country. What do these tax changes do? As a result of these tax changes, there'll be 35,000 fewer homes. Leave aside the fact that we've got a migration policy that's now out of control, with more people coming to the country and seeking homes. There are fewer homes. If you don't own your own home, presumably if you're not living with family members otherwise, you're renting.

But what do these tax changes do to renters? It's suggested, on the modelling of those opposite, that there'll be an impact of about $2 a week. I've got to say, I've had more than one person come up to me in the street and say, 'Tony, have you ever heard anything so ridiculous?' And you know why they say that? It's because many of them are renters. Very few of them have seen their rent go up by $2 a week. They've experienced rent increases much more than that and, indeed, couldn't imagine a world in which there would be an increase of only $2 a week.

What, then, about first home buyers? One of the very important prerequisites to entering the housing market is that you need to be able to save for a deposit.

I'll leave aside criticism of the five per cent deposit scheme, and we read a tragic story this morning in the news of a young person who went and bought an abandoned home for an alarmingly large amount of money, given that I think it was around $850,000. He spent $150,000 doing it up and he's just had a valuation of it at about $850,000, meaning he's now deeply into negative equity. I'll leave the criticisms of that for another day. What I want to talk about is this idea that you've got to save for a deposit. Now, smart investors or smart savers put those savings where they're likely to earn a substantial return—the share market, ETFs and other forms of wealth accumulation. What do these taxes do? These taxes say to those people who are doing their best to get themselves on the property ladder: 'Thank you very much for doing the right thing. We're now going to take 30 per cent of that in the form of tax. That is what you've managed to gain by making that investment.' This makes it harder for first home buyers who might be investing in shares or ETFs to get into a first home.

Then there's the idea of rent vesting. Many might not be familiar with this term, and I wasn't familiar with the term, but I've got to tell you, my wife and I did it. We purchased a home we couldn't afford to live in at the time, and so we leased it for a period of years until we could manage the mortgage payments without the rent and without the tax deductions that came along with it being an investment property. I now know that what we were doing is what people now call 'rent vesting'. Well, there's trouble on this front as well. Trouble on this front comes in the form of the fact that the advantages that come with rent vesting are stripped away as well.

Like you, Mr Speaker, I grew up in a small-business household. My parents weren't butchers, although as farmers we've cut up our fair share of meat on the farm. My parents were farmers and my mum was in retail. I learned the value of hard work from both of my parents. Small businesses are a 24/7 operation. In my mum's case there wasn't a day or an hour the shop was open that she wasn't standing in the shop. She would then come home and do copious amounts of bookwork both to pay accounts and to manage her accounts, because she ran a business that allowed ladies to buy goods on credit and pay monthly. Then, weekends were spent driving to Adelaide or Melbourne to purchase stock for upcoming seasons. In my father's case, he would get up before dawn and often come home in the dead of night. There were good years, there were bad years, and, effectively, they drew out of those small businesses simply enough to live, because every other dollar was invested back either on the farm, in the farm or in my mother's business. My parents weren't Robinson Crusoe when it came to running small businesses. I think that very much is the story of small businesses. You work every hour the good Lord made, you invest everything back into your business, you don't put away superannuation. You don't have that free cash available to you. Your business is your superannuation.

So imagine the alarm of business owners around the country. I think those opposite have underestimated the likely backlash. I expect that members of the backbench are feeling it up close and personal when they do their little coffee catch-ups or pop in on street walks and those sorts of things. Imagine the alarm across the small business sector when they'd just found out they'd acquired a new shareholder. The Prime Minister and those opposite are now 47 per cent shareholders in those small businesses.

We've seen the memes online. That is an outpouring of concern, of frustration. I'll tell you what: when Aussies are really angry, they use comedy and levity to deal with it. But my feed has filled up on the back of this, because Aussies think it's rotten, mean and nasty that those opposite, who haven't picked up a shovel, haven't been on the pricing gun, haven't drenched the sheep, haven't done the fencing—

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Name someone here who hasn't picked up a pricing gun!

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister Assisting for Fisheries and Forestry) | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll take the interjection. I can tell you, when it was sale time in my mother's business, we were there till midnight and after, reducing all the prices, praying that people would buy those goods. In any event, those opposite, having done none of that work in the businesses and small businesses across Australia, want to take a 47 per cent stake.

That's why—and perhaps I can end where I began—the Prime Minister of this country, when he goes to the football, when he goes to the tennis and when he goes to other places, is a little surprised by the response he gets from ordinary, everyday Australians and why those opposite are having to embark on these history-making, world record tax increases. It is because those opposite are addicted to spending. If they run out of money, as Labor has traditionally done and has done again now, they come after yours—the businesses of Australia—and that's exactly what's happening here.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Bill 2026 and related bills amend tax law to implement changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing announced at the recent federal budget, along with the $250 tax offset and the instant $1,000 expense deduction. These bills before us do not address changes to the taxation of trust income, and that's something that is of great interest and indeed significant concern to many of my constituents, who use trust structures to manage their family businesses. Neither do these bills seem to implement the exact capital gains tax changes that the government intends to proceed with.

This is tranche 1 of the legislation, with more to come. While it's not unusual for bills to be amended or for complex legislation to be introduced in tranches, we are being asked to vote on this legislation knowing that it likely doesn't represent the intended final operation of these reforms, because the government is currently working through potential modifications and carve outs. Frankly, this is really bad practice for legislation. It makes it truly difficult to engage with the substance of this legislation and to truly consider how it will affect the people I represent, especially given the length of time we've had with this bill, which is just one week.

Homeownership has become one of the most significant generational divides in Australia. When people of my generation bought our first house, it probably cost us three to four times the average annual income. Today it's closer to eight or 10. It used to take a couple of years to save for a deposit. Now it takes more than 12. Extraordinary growth in house prices has contributed to household prosperity for some, but the gap between housing costs and incomes is now so large that it's simply insurmountable for many young Australians. Those of us who got in early may have benefited financially, but we aren't crowing. We're increasingly worried that our children, our grandchildren and other people's children won't have anywhere they can afford to live, and we're seeing that playing out on our streets. I hear this consistently from my constituents.

It's not just the question of intergenerational equity. I've been talking about regional housing and the regional housing crisis for a long while. Over the past five years, house prices have increased faster in regional areas than in capital cities. There are fewer rental vacancies, and they're becoming less affordable. Building new homes costs more and takes longer. Lack of housing is a genuine barrier to workforce supply in critical sectors like education and health care, and that has existential outcomes for us in rural and regional Australia. So this is a serious problem. Housing access and affordability are serious problems we need to address. It is urgent.

We also know that the tax system in general is out of kilter, with wage and salary earners doing too much of the heavy lifting. Our tax system does need to be more efficient, more effective and fairer. Every option should be on the table. I commend my colleague the member for Wentworth for the hard work she's done in bringing this issue to the national attention.

Over the past 25 years, and notably since the Howard government introduced a flat 50 per cent capital gains tax discount, house prices have risen and homeownership has steadily shifted away from owner-occupiers and towards investors. It's clear that this has been driven, at least in part, by capital gains tax and negative gearing. We know that the benefits are unequally distributed. In 2022-23, 83 per cent of the value of the CGT discount went to the top 10 per cent of income earners. We know that the discount has favoured people living in capital cities over regional areas. Recent ACOSS analysis showed that, in my electorate of Indi, we share in just 0.3 per cent of the total national benefit. Five inner city electorates enjoy more than 20 per cent between them. We have a problem. The proceeds of negative gearing flow in a similar way to older, wealthier people in capital cities. The electorates with the lowest rental losses are overwhelmingly regional. Property owners in Indi are less likely to negatively gear than the average Australian.

So how does the legislation address these problems? Probably the most significant element of these bills is the changes they make to capital gains tax or CGT. CGT applies to gains made from assets. Put very simply, you pay tax on the difference in value if you sell an asset for more than it costs you to buy it. That makes sense. When you earn money, you pay tax. This delivers aged care, health care, disability services, defence, education and national infrastructure. Under current arrangements, as long as you've held an asset for at least one year, there's a 50 per cent discount on your CGT. You pay tax on half of your profit, and the other half is tax-free.

This legislation replaces the 50 per cent discount with a cost-base indexation method. Indexation ensures you're only taxed on your real proceeds over and above growth just from inflation. So if you spent $100,000 on an asset in the year 2000, that's the equivalent of almost $200,000 today. It's fair to take that into account. The exact amount of tax you pay on your adjusted gain will depend on how much other income you earn that year, as it does now, but the rate will be at least 30 per cent unless you receive means tested income support payments like the aged pension.

Crucially, these changes won't commence until 1 July 2027. Any assets you sell before then are completely unaffected. For assets you sell from 1 July 2027 onwards, only the profits after that date will be affected. All the gains you accrue right up to 30 June next year will be preserved under the existing system. As drafted, the changes apply to all assets. The government has foreshadowed potential carve-outs for certain types of assets or investors. The changes apply to gains made by individuals, including partners in a trust, partnerships and trusts. Companies and superannuation are subject to different rules that will not change.

The fact that CGT changes extend beyond residential property has caused considerable concern for small businesses, including from start-ups. I've seen the memes, and I've heard it directly from small-business owners in north-east Victoria, and I thank my constituents of Indi who have responded to my call to get in touch with me. It's understandable that there are concerns because, in the weeks leading up to the budget, the government articulated a case for tax reform that was clearly linked to housing. That was a missed opportunity for this government to be more upfront about the broader change. It's no wonder people are concerned; it took them by surprise.

This legislation works alongside existing CGT concessions for small businesses, which I'll outline in a moment—and it's important to understand this. But the fact that there has been so much confusion and uncertainty only highlights the importance of not rushing these changes. We saw these bills for the first time less than seven days ago, and this is a three-day sitting week. Complex reform demands good process. Australians deserve to understand how these changes will affect them, and parliamentarians must be given time to engage with their communities. So I want to say to my constituents, especially those people who've contacted me with really genuine concerns about their futures and livelihoods, I hear you. I too wish the government had done a better job at explaining these reforms. I too wish the government had taken the time to build genuine consensus.

For the small businesses in my electorate, I want to emphasise that this legislation does not affect any of the existing CGT concessions for small businesses, including the automatic 50 per cent discount on active assets and exemptions to help you prepare for retirement. These concessions can be used together to reduce or even eliminate the tax payable on capital gains. They are available to businesses with an aggregated annual turnover of less than $2 million or a net asset value of less than $6 million, and that actually is the vast majority of businesses in my electorate.

However, these thresholds have not been updated in almost two decades. The member for Kooyong has moved a second reading amendment calling on the government to increase the amounts to $10 million in turnover and $12 million in assets, indexed into the future. I echo her call, and I was pleased to second that amendment. I've had valuable—very valuable—discussions with COSBOA and the National Farmers' Federation about the need to bring these 20-year-old thresholds into line with the present day. I'm encouraged by their feedback that the government is engaging constructively with them, and I sincerely hope that the government fix this bit, because this is a simple change that will ensure concessions remain available to the businesses they were designed to help. For farming families and for agricultural businesses it will provide certainty about longer term succession planning, and that is critical to us in rural Australia.

In addition to the CGT, the bill makes changes to negative gearing. Right now, investors can use the cost of owning a rental, including interest on the mortgage, to offset their overall income and lower the tax they pay. From 1 July 2027, it will only be possible to offset rental losses against income from other residential properties, not what you earn from other sources. This only applies to properties acquired after 7.30 pm on 12 May this year—budget night, when the change was announced. If you owned a property before then, you can continue to negatively gear it.

In tackling CGT and negative gearing, the government is taking steps towards addressing housing inequality. The proposed reforms are ambitious, and I welcome ambition in government. Changes to both CGT and negative gearing include exemptions for new houses, to help incentivise supply. From 1 July 2027, if you'd like to negatively gear an investment property and retain access to the 50 per cent CGT discount when you sell it, well, you can. You just need to invest in a new dwelling that adds to Australia's housing supply. Of course, new houses cannot be built in a vacuum, and I welcome the government listening to my call to put money in the budget for critical enabling infrastructure so that we can get those houses out of the ground.

In addition to the changes to CGT and negative gearing, this legislation implements the working Australians tax offset, a permanent annual $250 deduction. In practice it is a very small bracket adjustment. It would be preferable to commit to actual indexation. Two hundred and fifty dollars might not have as much purchasing power by the time the WATO commences in the 2027-28 financial year, but it does provide some cost-of-living relief, and I don't think too many people in Indi will be knocking it back.

The final thing this legislation implements is a new instant $1,000 tax deduction starting in the next financial year, and this will allow workers to automatically claim $1,000 in work related expenses without having to provide receipts. This was a recommendation of the 2010 review of the taxation system led by Ken Henry, and it will make things simpler for taxpayers and should knock a couple of hundred dollars off the average tax bill. I welcome it. Importantly, charitable donations and other non-work related deductions can continue to be claimed on top of the automatic deduction, and those with more than $1,000 in work related expenses will still have the option to substantiate them and claim them as usual.

Whenever I consider legislation, I think about what it will mean for the people of Indi, what it will mean for regional Australia and what it will mean for the nation. Tax law might seem dry, but reforms like this raise fundamental questions about what's fair and about what's right. There's no objectively correct rate at which to tax capital gains, just different approaches that give effect to different priorities. There are legitimate reasons to tax capital more concessionally than labour. It promotes innovation, encourages future consumption, compensates for additional risk and incentivises the investment we need for long-term growth and productivity, but there is also a strong case for equal treatment or at least something a little less lopsided. Why should a nurse pay more tax on what they earn working a shift at a hospital than an investor who earns the same amount from selling an asset?

In considering this bill, I've tried to weigh all of this up. Ultimately, I think what Australians expect is a fair go on the same terms as other people. It's clear our current tax settings fall short on this principle. What remains to be seen is whether the full package being developed by the government will indeed help more people own their own home and meaningfully move us to a system that is more efficient, effective and fair.

Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Sovereign Capability) | Link to this | Hansard source

The Albanese Labor government's budget has gone over like a lead balloon. It's a typical Labor budget. It's big spending and high taxing, and it's full of broken promises. Actually, there are a litany of broken promises out there, and Australians cannot believe it. Those opposite at the last election in 2025 looked the Australians people in the eye and said, 'There are going to be no new taxes,' but after this budget we can clearly see that is simply not true. Those opposite have effectively been elected on a falsehood. At least the then leader of the opposition Bill Shorten took it to the election. He had the guts to take these taxes to the electorate and say, 'This is what I'm going to do.' The people voted against it, so Mr Shorten didn't become Prime Minister. What did Prime Minister Albanese do? He looked people in the eye and said, 'There are going to be no new taxes,' and, when asked about capital gains tax, negative gearing and trusts, he dismissed them and said, 'For the 50th time, no,' but here we are with this budget a year later sneakily bringing these taxes in.

What will these taxes mean? They're an assault on aspiration. They're an assault on the young people, the young people in this great country of ours that are simply trying to get ahead. People in my generation have had these tools—we've had capital gains tax, we've had negative gearing, we've had trusts—that we can use to help us create some wealth, but that's being taken away from our young people. It's not just the young people it's being taken away from; it's being taken away from anybody who's had their circumstances changed. For example, if someone was unfortunate enough to get divorced—they were living in a house together, and they unfortunately get divorced—then that person needs to buy another house. They move out, and they need to buy another house. They might not have the money for a deposit for that house. What do they do? The same as what young people do. They try to invest their money. They work hard. They invest their money in shares, EFTs or bitcoin, chasing a bigger return so they can then have that deposit so they can afford to buy a house. It's the Australian dream to own a house. What's going to happen now? They're going to be taxed more, so that aspiration of trying to get that Australian dream of owning the house under this Albanese Labor government is being moved further and further away. It is just simply not fair.

And there's negative gearing, the other broken promise—well, it's not the other; there seem to be broken promises after broken promises. What will the negative gearing changes mean? For an investor who's going to buy a home that he could rent out, what happens when he can't have this as a tax deduction, when his numbers don't work? He has to put the rent up. For people who are trying to get into a home, more of their disposable income is used up when the rent goes up. So they then haven't got the money to buy or have the deposit to buy a house. We've all been told that these new taxes are fair and that they're what we need for more houses. But the budget papers themselves show that there are going to be 35,000 fewer homes. So how do you think that's going to work? It's making it harder and harder for all Australians.

But I think we need to get to the crux of it. This isn't about homeownership. This is about Labor control. Labor don't want people to be aspirational, to own their own homes, to independently think. They want people who have spare money to invest in bigger corporations, larger businesses, that they can then unionise, because that's how they get their money. It's simply not fair.

With the $77 million extra in tax, this is the highest taxing budget in history. It's certainly not the gold medal that I'd want to aspire to. As I said before, Prime Minister Albanese didn't have the guts to take these proposals to the election. This won't hurt the big end of town as much as it will hurt the little guys. Now, I know those opposite are saying, 'Oh, you're only looking after your big businesses.' That's absolutely ridiculous, because the bigger end of town will already have money for a deposit or they will have the money, potentially, to pay cash for a house. It's going to affect the everyday battlers, and that is the bad thing about this budget.

Flying down here, I was talking to a guy on the plane sitting next to me. He said: 'Andrew, I hope you're going down to try to breathe some common sense into the Labor government about this budget. Mate, I'm a battler. I've got a small business; I employ three guys. We do shutdowns. I'm travelling away from my family now to do this. I've bought a house and I've got a child. At some point, if I can pay enough off the house and eventually own it, I might be able to give that house to my child just to help them out.' But, with all the changes now, he's saying, 'Why bother?' And that is the really big issue that I have with this budget. When someone wants to work hard in this country, they deserve a fair go. And that ladder is being pulled up from them. The ladder of aspiration is being taken away by this Albanese Labor government, and I really believe that that's sad. This isn't the Australia that we aspire to. We want a better Australia. We want people to be able to afford their own homes.

This budget is dissolving faster than sugar in the North Queensland wet season. The Albanese Labor government is trying to promote this budget as a sweet deal, but beneath the sugar coating is a bitter recipe of broken promises and tax grabs. It leaves the public with a sour taste in their mouths; frankly, it is a budget that the Australian people are finding hard to swallow. Break this budget down into its ingredients, and the bitter truth is laid bare. Hidden in the fine print of this budget is a death tax, called an inheritance tax.

Let's be honest—the truth on the other side is in very short supply. Those opposite are trying to dress this budget up as something that is palatable. You can't put lipstick on a pig, because if you do it's still a pig. This is certainly a swine of a budget, and those opposite are telling porkies. The Treasurer serves up tales of relief while the family budget bleeds. The government paints a picture of prosperity while the people are working harder for less. It's a banquet of deception where every course is seasoned with a new tall tale, and the Australian people are sick of being force fed this steady diet of fabrications. The cold, hard truth is that the cost of everyday life is pricing ordinary Australians out of their own future.

We all know that, when Labor run out of money, they come after yours. No-one voted for these new taxes. These taxes weren't taken to the Australian people. The Prime Minister promised more than 50 times before the last election that he would not introduce them. But, as we know, his word is a bond that constantly defaults. In an act of complete bad faith and disregard for the Australian people, he turned around and broke every single one of those commitments. These new taxes are not designed to grow the economy. They are designed to manage its decline. Like I said before, there's a death tax, a tax on family savings, a tax on renters, first home buyers and young Australians just trying to get ahead and a tax on small business, startups and entrepreneurs.

The member for Parramatta is one of those opposite, but he's a businessperson, so he even spoke about how bad this budget was. This budget is full of broken promises, and it's a budget that breaks the Australian dream. It's an assault on aspiration. Like I said before, it pulls up the ladder of opportunity. Labor's budget does not create intergenerational fairness. It is intergenerational fraud. This government's treasurer is the inflationary arsonist who pretends to be a firefighter. This is now the highest-taxing government in Australian history. The budget locks in $77 billion of higher taxes, and the Prime Minister has now confirmed $273 billion in taxes that we did not vote for, and that is over the next nine years. Debt is heading towards $1.25 trillion. The interest bill is $80,000 a minute. Today's debt is tomorrow's taxes, and it will be the next generation that will be handed the bill. The coalition opposes schedules 1 and 2, but we will support schedules 3 and 4. We are the party of lower taxes.

Not only is this budget built on broken promises, higher taxes and lower living standards, but it's also building fewer homes. The government's own budget papers say that 35,000 fewer homes will be built as a direct consequence of their new taxes. This is not the coalition's number. This is the government's own numbers. When you tax something, you get less of it. This is an obvious economic concept to all other than those opposite. The more you tax housing investment, the less housing investment you get. This is a plain and simple fact. This Labor government's budget narrative is built around intergenerational fairness, but strip away the rhetoric and the budget papers confirm that the lower supply, combined with the government's own overshoot of immigration to the tune of 90,000, means higher demand, lower supply and higher prices.

When you increase the cost of investment to investors, guess what? These investors aren't a charity. They will pass the cost of those onto the renters, and this will make it harder for people to save for a deposit. This is just common sense. The government's own budget papers admit their tax changes will increase rents. Labor are taking from young Australians at every stage of their journey, not just at the point of the purchase.

I want to talk about Jen and Mike from my electorate. They are the generation that this budget was supposed to champion. Instead, they are the casualties. After a decade of savings, they finally built their new home in 2021. They thought they'd achieved the Australian dream, but now they are trapped. They've paid nearly $2,000 extra every month in additional interest alone since this Labor government was elected. That is money being forcibly extracted from their family budget. It has resulted in their health insurance being cancelled. They have to make a choice between paying their electricity bill or buying groceries. To the total shame of this government, it's their son's swimming lessons that have had to be cancelled. Is this the Australia we want for our future generations? Our young people to be struggling just to get by? Jen and Mike are being penalised for the crime of hard work. They were promised a fair go; instead, they've been stripped of all their savings and are at risk of having to sell the house they've spent a decade saving for. Shame, shame, shame on those opposite!

This government claims to stand for workers, yet they have turned Jen and Mike into victims of their own success. Because Jen and Mike earn slightly more than the minimum wage, there was no pay rise for them yesterday. They have to watch real wages fall while they work harder to take home less. Jen and Mike said there is nothing in the budget for them, and they are right. They are the young, hardworking Australians this government should be rewarding. They are the hardworking young Australians that the coalition will be there to support.

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill, seemingly, has no friends. On one hand, the Greens have been campaigning for property tax concession reform for a long time. It's clearly necessary to wind back these concessions if we are going to fix the housing crisis, but we also need investment in public housing and renters' rights reform. However, the reforms that we've been presented clearly have many loopholes that advantage existing property owners over young people trying to enter the property market. Why should these tax concessions be grandparented for people with five, 15 or 50 properties? If this reform is actually going to have an impact on the housing crisis, those people cannot be encouraged to hold on to their dozens of properties. But that's what these reforms as drafted will incentivise.

Young Australians are not cheering for this package of reforms, because they've watched the property ladder being pulled up before their eyes. Another really serious concern is the broad, sweeping ministerial powers that this legislation gives the Treasurer. Then there are the changes to tax concessions for non-housing assets. The government has failed to communicate with the public about these changes, leaving the door open—as we've seen—for a massive campaign against them by big business, start-up founders and people invested in shares—people earning a passive income from simply owning assets shouldn't be taxed at a lower rate than people earning an income from working. I don't think that that should be controversial to say.

What gets a little more complex is the situation where people who might be earning an income from work are supplementing that with earnings from non-housing assets. Many people doing this are quite wealthy, but certainly not everyone. I can totally understand why young people who feel locked out of the housing market and may have resorted to assets like shares to save up for a deposit would feel that they're getting the rug pulled out from under them. I do think that that's understandable. I've also been hearing from many of my constituents—some retirees, some small-business owners, and many others concerned about potential unintended consequences—that the government simply has not been able to explain or to justify its proposed changes to these concerned people.

So where are we left on this bill? It's going to a Senate inquiry where these issues will be examined, as they should be. It's important we let that process play out. What we ultimately want to see is the billionaires, the ultrawealthy and the one per cent who are earning a huge amount from simply watching assets grow paying their fair share, but let's make sure that is actually what this bill will achieve. The Greens will be supporting this bill in the House. The government has the numbers, and the bill's clearly going to pass. But I want to make very clear that we will be reserving our position in the Senate.

Mary Aldred (Monash, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on behalf of the small businesses, the family farmers and the regional communities who are about to be caught in the blast radius of Labor's latest tax changes. While those opposite try to dress this up as tax reform, people in the real world see it for what it is. This is a government that promised certainty, delivered confusion and has become known for its backflips and broken promises.

Accountants across this country are dealing with something very different. Right now, they are not preparing for tax time. They are managing panic. An accounting practice in my electorate told me yesterday that they have never seen anything quite like it. For the past three weeks, their days have been consumed by calls from concerned clients looking for the answers, reassurance and certainty that the government has failed to provide.

This is not a practice serving multinational corporations or wealthy inner city investors. Their clients are dairy farmers producing milk for Australian families, beef producers feeding our families, contractors, transport operators and small-business owners who keep Australia running. The accounting practice states that, across the practice, around 150 clients have raised concerns or requested advice. Many of them are worried that changes to trusts and capital gains tax could fundamentally alter the way their family businesses and farming enterprises operate.

Many of these businesses operate through family trusts not because they're looking for loopholes but because family trusts have long been a legitimate and practical structure for succession planning, asset protection and the transfer of businesses from one generation to the next. These are mums and dads who have spent decades building something they hope to pass on to their children. Long may the family farming model continue in this country; its greatest threat is this Albanese Labor government. These are family farms trying to ensure that the next generation has an opportunity to continue that family enterprise. They're farming families trying to ensure their businesses remain viable not just for themselves but for the wider community and our nation, which depends on their success.

Where I come from, our towns revolve around the dairy industry. In parts of my electorate, there are around seven dairy cows for every one person. That industry is the economic heartbeat of our communities. The local machinery dealer depends on it. The local stock agent depends on it. The accountant, the veterinarian, the transport operator, the local cafe, the retail store and the sporting clubs all depend on our local dairy industry.

When our farmers are strong, our towns are strong. I always say healthy local businesses sustain healthy regional communities. But, when our farmers struggle, entire communities feel that impact. Without a viable farming industry, many of our regional towns simply wouldn't exist in the form we know them today. They would be shadows of themselves.

Let us not forget what is really at stake here. Every Australian relies on farmers every single day for the milk on the breakfast table, the cheese in a sandwich, the steak on a dinner plate and the fruit, vegies and grains that feed this nation. So governments that make it harder for farming families to invest, grow and plan for their future are not just affecting farmers; they are affecting the very people who produce the food and fibre that every Australian across this nation depends on. If farming families cannot remain viable, a simple question follows: where does your dinner come from for tonight?

Why is the government making it harder to run a family business in Australia? Why are families who have spent a lifetime building a business now facing uncertainty about how they will pass it on to the next generation? Why is this Labor government making life harder for the very people who produce our food, create local jobs and keep local communities strong?

The local accountant's assessment was blunt. The proposed changes to trust taxation will force many small businesses and primary producers to consider expensive restructures. These are businesses that have followed the rules, businesses that have already adapted to previous ATO changes and businesses that simply want certainty so they can focus on growing food, employing local people and investing in our regional communities. When one regional accounting practice is reporting 150 clients in a state of genuine distress, this Labor government should be paying attention. If this is what is happening in one country town in my electorate of Monash, it is happening in farming communities and regional centres right across Australia.

For many people in my electorate, this debate is not about tax law. It is about whether decades of hard work can be passed on to the next generation. It is about conversations around the kitchen table. It is about whether a son or a daughter can afford to come home to the farm. It is about whether a family business stays in local hands or is eventually sold off because the costs and complexity are just too much, and that is why so many people are worried. They are not asking for special treatment. They are not asking for loopholes. They are not asking for favours. They just want a fair go. The Prime Minister said 'no new taxes' more than 50 times. He told us himself. Meanwhile, one regional accounting practice has had 150 calls from those clients about those 50 promises. If that doesn't tell you who Australians are believing, I don't know what does.

They want to know that, if they work hard, invest in their business, employ local people, play by the rules, those rules won't suddenly change underneath them halfway through the game. The reality is that regional Australia is already carrying a very heavy load under this Labor government. Farmers are dealing with rising input costs. Small businesses are dealing with higher energy prices. Transport operators are facing increased operating expenses. Manufacturers are battling with red tape and global competition. Many family businesses are still recovering from years of economic uncertainty. At a time when confidence should be encouraged, this government is creating more doubt. At a time when investment should be rewarded, this government is creating more hesitation, and, at a time when Australia should be backing the people who produce, build and create, this government is making it harder for them to plan for a future ahead.

What concerns me most is the signal this sends to younger Australians, particularly in our regional communities. We hear speeches in this place about innovation. We hear speeches about backing aspiration. But what message is this Labor government sending when every time someone works hard, takes a risk, builds a business or creates wealth the government's first instinct is to look for another way to tax it. The people I represent do not expect success to be easy. Farmers and small businesses understand risk. They live with risk every day. Markets, fuel prices, labour shortages and rising costs are all part of their lives. What they should not have to contend with is uncertainty created by their own government. Regional Australia does not need more complexity. It does not need more paperwork. It does not need more reasons for investment decisions to be delayed and undermined. It needs confidence. It needs stability. It needs a government that understands that every decision made in this place eventually lands on the kitchen table of every Australian family.

The coalition believes there's a better way. We believe aspiration should be encouraged not punished. We believe family businesses should be supported not burdened. We believe farmers should have confidence to invest, expand and pass their enterprises to the next generation. Most importantly, we believe governments should keep their promises, because trust matters, confidence matters and certainty matters. When governments lose sight of those principles, it is hardworking Australians who pay the price. The farmers, small-business owners and regional communities I represent deserve better. They deserve policies that strengthen local economies. They deserve policies that encourage investment. They deserve policies that support family businesses and farming enterprises not make their future more uncertain.

For those reasons, I stand with the farmers, small businesses and families in my electorate of Monash. I oppose these measures. I want to say to family businesses and farmers in my electorate: I back you, the coalition backs you and we will be supporting you.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) | Link to this | Hansard source

After about 17 hours of debate, I think it's time we got this done. I move:

That the question be put.

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the question be put.

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time, to which the honourable member for Hume moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. Subsequent amendments have been moved by honourable members. We'll deal with the immediate question, which is that the amendment moved by the honourable member for Fowler be agreed to.

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendment moved by the honourable member for Kooyong be agreed to.

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

The question now is that the amendment moved by the honourable member for Warringah be agreed to.

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendment moved by the honourable member for Curtin be agreed to.

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the House is that the amendment moved by the honourable member for Hume be agreed to.

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the bill be now read a second time.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the debate be adjourned and the resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for a later hour this day.