Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that businesses of all sizes will lose the existing 50 per cent capital gains tax discount across all assets?

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

He's a bit slow on the uptake, Mr Speaker. We announced some time ago that there would still be a discount capital gains. It would move to a discount which reflects the real gains that people make rather than an arbitrary figure—point No. 1. Point No. 2 is, just on Thursday, we announced the next steps in the legislation for the really important tax reforms that we announced on budget night. What that made clear was that 98 per cent of all active businesses will be able to access concessions and carve outs when it comes to the CGT system. We made that very clear. One hundred per cent of active small businesses get access to the higher turnover threshold, and that means 98 per cent of active businesses get access to carve-outs and concessions when it comes to those existing concessions in the system.

Once again, I think it says everything about the shadow treasurer that he is trying to weaponise a scare campaign against the types of changes that he called for in this parliament and in his book. This is a shadow treasure who, time and time again, called on the government to make changes of this kind. Then, when we do it, he tries to weaponise a scare campaign against it.

What those opposite really want—what their vote the last time this parliament sat tells the whole country is that, when they're given the option to vote to make it easier for first home buyers, they vote against it. When they're given the option to vote for more tax cuts for workers, they vote against it. In that regard, they're no different to One Nation, the Nationals or the Liberals. They are all the same when it comes to that.

If they don't want there to be a fairer go for first home buyers, if they don't want to better align the tax treatment of labour and asset income—as the shadow treasurer called for in his book and in the parliament on multiple occasions—and if they don't want to cut taxes for workers, they should just say so. They shouldn't be hiding behind this dishonest scare campaign that the shadow treasurer is especially guilty of.