Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications and Digital Safety) | Hansard source

Thanks, Acting Deputy President. I again quote from the front page of the Herald Sun: 'CAVE-IN: Albo accused of'—that L word, which I can't say—'again after "dangerous deal" to fast-track controversial tax grab on Aussies. PM UNDER GREEN THUMB'. Today's Australian says: 'LEFT-WING PARTY TO DEMAND MORE CONCESSIONS ON NDIS REFORM BILL. LABOR HIT ON SMSF HOUSING INVESTMENTS. Paying for Greens' 'kill' plot'.

Australians cannot trust a word this Prime Minister says. Before the election, he said there would be no changes to capital gains tax, negative gearing or superannuation. This was his bond. He said:

My word is my bond.

His word means nothing. We cannot trust anything more this Prime Minister says.

This is a gross deception to which Australians have been subjected, and this latest dirty deal to prohibit self-managed super funds from borrowing to purchase residential real estate is another kick in the guts for mum-and-dad investors who thought their super was safe under Labor. Here is my message: your super is not safe. Your savings are not safe. Your investments under this toxic government are not safe. Guess what's coming next? The family home. The Prime Minister says, 'No, we're not going to target the family home.' We can't trust him, because we know that when Labor runs out of money they come after yours.

Of course, this prohibition on borrowing through SMSFs has nothing to do with building more homes. This is all about appeasing the big boys in the industry super funds—and the unions, which have their tentacles wrapped through every part of these companies. That is a disgrace. After the shocking corruption we've seen in Victoria, where some $15 billion has been funnelled through Big Build projects in corruption and rorts, written and authorised by the CFMEU, we now see this dirty deal.

Australians are speaking with their feet. Nearly $8 billion has flowed out of industry super funds into self-managed super funds in the past year alone as more Australians choose to take control of their own retirement savings. So many Australians are saying, 'We cannot trust the industry funds to put our interests first.' Is it any wonder? Industry super funds control hundreds of billions of dollars in workers' retirement savings, yet they too often have operated with inadequate transparency, entrenched poor governance structures and board appointments driven by union affiliation, rather than merit. Australians are increasingly questioning whether their retirement savings are being managed solely in their best interests. This is not an attack on the big end of town. The big end of town don't have their own private, self-managed super funds. These are mum-and-dad investors. The big end of town are the big corporations and the big foreigners who get tax concessions. What a joke!

As for the Greens, they do this deal and then stand up, make all these excuses and say, 'Oh, no, it's really terrible.' They've done this dirty deal. The Greens have sold out the renters of Australia. The Greens have even sold out people with disability. The Greens will not stop.

What we know is that no-one voted for these new taxes. The Prime Minister didn't have the ticker—he didn't have the heart or the courage—to say to the Australian people, 'I want to change the tax system, and I'm going to take it to an election.' Labor knew exactly what they were going to do. I know, on that side, despite all the protestations that we are hearing, there is a lot of deep concern, even amongst Labor members and senators, about what this budget has done to so many Australians. It is a crime.

As for the Greens deal, of course they've done nothing to grandfather the negative gearing arrangements for those that are in existence, but they've punished young Australians. Young Australians have been denied the opportunity to negatively gear—except for a new build, an impossible dream for so many, which could take two, three or four years. The Greens, in doing this dirty deal, have particularly sold out young Australians—young Australians who wanted to invest in their future through the purchase of shares or property or through utilising their own self-managed super fund—and the renters of this country.

What has happened is extraordinary. We have got the death tax, a tax on family savings and a tax on renters, first home buyers and young Australians trying to get ahead. We now have a tax on small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs—on the engine room of the Australian economy. This is a disgusting, disgraceful budget of broken promises—a budget that breaks the Australian dream. It is an assault on aspiration, pulling the ladder of opportunity up from young Australians before they get their feet on the first rung. This is a bad-faith budget which does nothing to improve intergenerational inequality; it makes the problem worse. Labor's budget isn't one of intergenerational fairness; it's intergenerational fraud.

This budget is unravelling faster than anything we've seen in this place before. Every week, another broken promise surfaces. There was a death tax buried in the fine print along with dodgy inflation data and a secret $200 billion income tax hike. The Treasurer can't even keep track of his own deceptions. He doesn't even know how many young Australians have shares. He did that interview with that magnificent young podcaster who had to correct the Treasurer, and here he is scrambling with his papers because he didn't even understand that the changes to capital gains tax punish young Australians, including those seeking to buy shares or who have shares, more than anyone else. Mr Chalmers' economic model has one setting—to stoke inflation, tax inflation, spend inflation. Australians are living with these consequences at the supermarket, on their mortgage, in their pay packet.

I was also just flabbergasted to hear Senator Mulholland say, 'Well, we're here looking after the salary earners of Australia and Australian workers.' Australian salary earners are entitled to invest in their future, and the tenor of Senator Mulholland's entire contribution was: this doesn't matter to them; we need to look after their salary. Of course, that's not in debate but why should salary earners be denied the opportunity to invest in their future? Because these tax changes crucify anyone wanting to put a bit away for a rainy day, either for themselves into the future, for their retirement, for their kids or for their grandkids.

What a title we have from this Prime Minister—the highest-taxing government in Australian history. The Prime Minister has now confirmed $273 billion in taxes Australians did not vote for over the next nine years. It is time the truth be told. Debt is heading towards $1.25 trillion. The interest bill is $80,000 a minute. That's 12 credit cards being issued per Australian behind their backs. Today's debt is tomorrow's taxes, and it's the next generation being handed the bill.

The coalition opposes schedules 1 and 2, and supports schedules 3 and 4 of these bills. We will fight these toxic taxes tooth and nail. If they become law under Labor, a coalition government will repeal them. Our plan is the opposite of Labor's—lower taxes, lower inflation and an economy designed to back the self-starters of the nation, not kneecap them. You work, you risk, you invest, you believe in this country and you have the certainty under the coalition. Hopefully, the next government will be a coalition government which will back Australians every step of the way.

I want to finish on the shocking impact that this budget is having on housing. The government's own budget papers say 35,000 fewer homes will be built as a direct consequence of these new taxes. That's not our number; that's the number in the budget papers. When you tax something, you get less of it. That's not ideology; that's economics 101. That's what's in the budget papers. The more you tax housing investment, the less housing investment you get, and the government has decided that's a price that young Australians in particular should pay. So there is all this rubbish from the government and the Greens about intergenerational fairness yet, if you strip away the rhetoric, look at the budget papers, you will see that there is lower supply, which, combined with the government's own migration overshoot of 90,000, means higher demand, lower supply and higher prices. That is not fairness. This is a housing disaster hiding behind a focus-group-tested phrase, and we can see it in action already. Auction clearance rates are going through the floor. Confidence is being sapped out of the housing market. But Labor could not care less because they're bringing in another 1.4 million people—the population of Adelaide—and, of course, we are all paying the price of these grossly irresponsible policies. (Time expired)