Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Albanese Labor Government to explain why Australians are being forced to pay the price for Labor's spending problem through a toxic tax agenda that punishes hard work, investment and ambition, while empowering Canberra bureaucrats to decide which businesses and Australians deserve relief and which do not.

It's with some disappointment that I feel the need to move this urgency motion today. It's sad that we're in this particular position. This toxic agenda of this government is driven through broken promises, through the breaking of the government's word and by the politics of envy. The really tragic part of this toxic tax agenda is that, despite all of the things the government says this is supposed to do and despite all of the things they want it to do, it's not doing any of them. They talk about wanting to make it easier for people to buy a house. This toxic tax proposal actually makes it harder for a young person to save for a house by taxing, at a higher rate, the mechanisms that young Australians are using to save their first home deposit.

So, when the government goes out and tells young Australians that they are trying to help them get into the housing market, it's actually the other way around. The higher taxes that this government is seeking to charge Australian people with their dirty deal with the Greens are actually making it harder for young people to save. It's not making housing any more affordable, which the government promised that they would do in 2022. At that election, they promised more affordable housing. That hasn't happened—another broken promise—but it will put up rents. The government's own budget papers say that. They also say that these measures will mean that 35,000 fewer houses will be built, so there will be less stock in the market for young Australians to compete against others for, and that's on top of the fact that under this government we are building 30,000 fewer houses per year than we were building under the previous government.

There are 170,000 houses being built a year; 200,000 houses a year were being built previously. That's because of the toxic policies of this government. They'll get up and they'll tell you this is all meant to be about intergenerational fairness. It is not, in particular, when this government went to the last election saying there would be no changes to capital gains tax. That was their promise. They promised, 50 times, that there would be no changes to capital gains tax, and of course now they say, 'We've changed our mind.' So what does the government's word mean? Add that to the fact that they said that there would be no changes to other taxes. They broke that promise too, so how does anyone believe anything this government says, including in this debate?

They'll get up and tell you: 'Everything's fine. We're about intergenerational fairness. We're about doing this for young Australians.' But you can't believe a word this government says, because, as they've proven so many times—a $275 reduction in our power bills by 2025. They said that 97 times at the 2022 election, and it never came to pass—only increasing power prices. Lower cost of living—they've driven inflation the other way. Lower housing prices—we know how that's going. Then they promised there would be no changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing, but they've brought this toxic policy in through a dirty deal with the Greens. The effect of this process is that Nick McKim is effectively writing tax policy for the Australian government these days. That's what's happening now. Nick McKim from the Greens, which is the party that wants to drive the economy down, is writing tax policy for this Labor government. They should be ashamed. They should apologise to the Australian people.