Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) | Hansard source

Senator Collins has raised this matter of public importance, and it is such a matter of public importance, because so many times this government has said they need to move laws and guidelines because dealing with other people's money is so important. They've got the banking know-your-client report. The other day, I had an NAB account—I didn't know I had it anymore—and they phoned up and said they're going to shut it down unless I show up in person and throw 3,400 points of ID across the table to prove I am actually who I am. You have to know your client in financial services. We moved a whole lot of stuff about financial services, where all accountants and financial advisers have to go into great detail about who they are, any disclosures and knowing their people.

But it doesn't appear to carry over to this government when dealing with other people's money, because they didn't even know the effect of their own legislation when it came to people getting divorced, widows or widowers, and what happened to the capital gains tax. For everyone else out there in the community, every other person that deals with financial things, it is very important that you know everything, in and out, about what happens with the money, but not for this government. What we found out is that the laws as proposed, as rushed through in a two-day sitting, meant that, if you had an accident where you had a partner pass away or if you had a divorce and there was a settlement, you triggered a capital gains tax event. Something that was previously grandfathered under the legislation would reset in the eyes of the capital gains tax, and suddenly you'd have a tax-liable asset. That's not good enough. It's not good enough that they discovered just days before this, when they've been building this legislation up for a while, what it is. It's not good enough.

Imagine this. Imagine you have shares, jointly owned with a partner, and you divorce. Let's just say the split is fifty-fifty. One partner gets 50 per cent of the shares; the other person gets 50 per cent of the shares. If they are in one person's name and they don't change the title of those shares, that person will receive theirs tax free, with no capital gains tax, but the person whose shares are transferred triggers the CGT. One person will be taxed higher than the other and treated differently under the CGT. That is just unfair. Imagine creating a law where two people getting the same thing are treated differently. We're not even going to someone mourning the death of a partner, the death of a loved one, where suddenly something they've owned forever—shares, investments, a house—triggers the CGT. That's why competency has to matter. That's why knowing what your legislation does has to matter. And this doesn't do this.

I know the defences we'll hear today. They won't be about this matter. They'll deflect. They'll be talking about the tax cuts. That's what will happen here. They'll say, 'This side didn't vote for the tax cuts.' Well, the Labor Party wouldn't separate it. They wanted it kept together. They wanted both because they wanted a wedge. But I will say this: the Labor Party that says we didn't vote for these $5-a-week tax cuts because they were linked also were the party that voted against tax cuts every year by indexing bracket creep. Everyone getting their $5 a week this year would have got far more had the Labor Party supported the amendment to index bracket creep and get a tax cut every year. That wasn't on the table. What we saw was legislation designed to divide Australia, not bring it together, and legislation that was not clearly worked through about the effects on people.

And we have the promise: 'Don't worry, we'll fix it. We'll fix it down the track. We'll fix it eventually.' It's like some scene from Australia You're Standing In It, back in the day, with the Dodgey Brothers: 'Oh, don't worry, we fix. We fix.' It needs to be fixed when you pass it. If you can't come through with legislation that is actually competent and works and is fit for purpose, don't bring it. Delay it. Have this all come through when you are right on this. It's not that much to ask. If you are prepared to go and ask other financial institutions—