Sue Lines (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Colbeck has submitted a proposal, under standing order 75, today. It is shown at item 12 on today's Order of Business.

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.

Is consideration of the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) | Link to this | 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.

Corinne Mulholland (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose this urgency motion. While I respect my learned colleague Senator Colbeck, this motion comes straight out of central casting for the Liberal Party. It defends vested interests over working people. We all remember it was the Liberal Party who went to the last election with a toxic tax agenda. The Liberals proposed higher taxes. The Liberals wanted to repeal our tax cuts for workers. Every Australian worker would have been financially worse off under a Prime Minister Peter Dutton. Thank God that didn't happen. So we will not be lectured to about taxes by the party that ran for government proposing to increase them—a party who deliberately set policies to cause wages to stagnate for a decade. Under Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison, life got harder year on year for ordinary Australians—a decade of stagnant wages, a decade of falling productivity, a decade of bulk-billing rates in absolute freefall. That is the Liberal Party record.

Now let's talk about Labor's. Our budget backs Australians who earn their living through work. This is unashamedly a budget for working people. It cuts taxes for more than 14 million Australians, with a permanent reduction in the lowest marginal rate from 16c down to 15c and then to 14c. That is money in the pocket of every worker every year, ongoing, not a one-off sugar hit. That is permanent relief for working people.

We're also rebuilding the healthcare system that the Liberals deliberately ran into the ground. We promised urgent care clinics across the country at the last election, and we've opened 137 of them right across Australia. I'm proud to say there are 26 clinics in Queensland alone, in Brisbane, Buderim, Cairns, Capalaba, Carindale, Gladstone, Deception Bay, Greenslopes, Mackay and, most recently, Caloundra, where we opened a clinic last week following the Prime Minister's visit to the Sunshine Coast. Since then, the Caloundra Medicare Urgent Care Clinic has seen over 110 patients in the first few days of opening—no appointment, no out-of-pocket costs, just your Medicare card. We know that urgent care clinics are driving competition in the marketplace, coupled with our bulk-billing incentives, and bulk billing is going back up under Labor after those opposite tried to end it. From November 2025 to January this year, more than 18 per cent of GP visits were bulk-billed, the biggest quarterly increase since the pandemic. In communities like Longman on the north side of Brisbane, around Caboolture, bulk-billing rates have jumped 30 per cent. That is real cost-of-living relief for real families.

Senator Colbeck's motion talks about who this government's budget empowers, and I will tell him proudly that this budget empowers working people. We've delivered a 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood educators, who are predominantly women—workers who were chronically underpaid and undervalued under that side of politics. A typical educator is now earning more than $150 more a week under Labor. From July next month, paid parental leave rises to 26 weeks—six months of government funded leave for families welcoming a new child, up from 18 weeks when we first came to government in 2022. The Liberals didn't support it. One Nation didn't support it. It was Labor.

In the last week, Australians got a front-row seat to see what a Liberal-One Nation government would look like and deliver for working families, and that is a slap in the face to the 1.4 million children in early education and child care and their families who rely on child care. Those opposite don't support the childcare subsidy. They'd rather see families pay more for childcare every single day. The three-day guarantee? They didn't support it; they voted against it. A pay rise for early educators? One Nation mocked it last week. What is on offer from those opposite under a Liberal-One Nation government? Questioning women who take time off to be with their new child. You cannot champion family values in this country and undervalue the work of working women in our society. You can't say you support workers while undermining working women in this country. Australians are being sold a pup from those opposite. One Nation say they stand up for working people, but all they do is take their marching orders from wealthy billionaires.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

This government does have a toxic tax agenda, but that toxicity is less about who this government chooses to tax and more about who this government refuses to tax. This government had a choice to make about who it valued—disabled Australians or multinational gas corporations. Their answer could not be more clear, because that is the choice sitting behind these cuts.

Disabled Australians and their families have told the parliament what the proposed changes to the NDIS would mean for their lives, for their independence and for their dignity. They have asked to be heard, they have demanded to be heard, and they have demanded that this government listen, and yet, instead of just staring down a handful of gas exporters in this country and demanding they contribute more, Labor is forcing disabled Australians to carry the burden of its budget choices—just a handful of companies who should be bringing in more than $17 billion per year in revenue that could be used to strengthen not cut essential supports like the NDIS and to make it easier not harder for everyday Australians. Instead, that money is being siphoned offshore. Maybe not all of it's going offshore, because tens of thousands of it are going back into the campaign coffers of the corporate parties in this place: Labor, Liberal and One Nation. Of course, a few million need to be put aside to fund the PR campaigns against reforms like a tax on gas. Billions remain untaxed instead of going out to help everyday Australians who need it.

This is not about whether they are difficult decisions to make, because governments are forced to make decisions every day. We appreciate that. The question is: who gets protected, and who is sacrificed? Why is there always a reason not to tax the super profits of multinational companies but never one to strengthen the supports that people rely on every single day? The Greens have fought to give the disability community more time, more scrutiny and more protections, but the message from that community has been clear: these cuts cannot proceed. They must not proceed. This is Labor capitulating to the right, to the Liberals, the Nationals and Gina Rinehart's One Nation, who are constantly inventing new ways to punch down on Australians who need support.

For months, we have heard the same rhetoric about cracking down on rorts and getting spending under control, but, when the inquiry heard from the people who will actually be impacted by these changes, we heard that these cuts aren't targeting waste; they're targeting people. Instead of listening to those Australians, Labor has chosen to echo the talking points of those who have spent years undermining public support for the NDIS and looking for opportunities to shrink it. The government cannot claim that there is no alternative while billions of dollars in gas profits leave Australian shores untaxed every single day.

Disabled Australians are not a budget repair measure. If this government has the courage to ask people who are already struggling to do more, then it should have the courage to ask multinational corporations or to demand multinational corporations making billions from Australia's resources to pay what they owe, because political courage is not balancing the budget off the backs of disabled people. Political courage is not letting lobbyists write the rules in this joint. Political courage is not taking the path of least resistance and hoping nobody notices. Real political courage is taking on the vested interests. It is making gas corporations pay what they owe Australians. It's staring down the gambling lobby and banning gambling advertising on our screens. It's being prepared to stand up to industries with money, access and influence when the public interest demands it and when the Australian people demand it.

Instead, this government take the easier path, the path that sees them beating down on disabled Australians. It's asking more from people who already have less while refusing to demand more from corporations making billions of dollars of profit off our Australian resources. Disabled Australians should not be paying the price for that failure of political courage from the government, and they should not be treated as collateral damage because Labor is too afraid and too timid and too gutless to stare down those corporations and to actually take them on.

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness) | Link to this | Hansard source

I think a lot of people in this building have been a bit shell shocked about the changing dynamics in our political system. They may be confronting for some; they may threaten individual or even political interests. But I think it shows that the system is probably buggered. When you look at the fundamentals of the country, people know it's buggered. In fact, the sentiment after the budget was so bad that—it didn't really surprise me that $77 billion in new taxes would be considered bad. But it's important to separate people understanding their own economic interests and people thinking about the country. People know the country is heading in the wrong direction. They know that the trajectory is bad. They know that, every time politicians stand up and announce new funding, it's not funding; it's borrowed money. They know about the trillion dollars of debt. They know that they're heavily taxed. They know that; they can feel that. Even though we're not in a technical recession, for many people it feels like what a recession would feel like. And it's a long time since we had a prolonged technical recession.

But I think that's the dynamic—that people are angry and frustrated with the system. I think that they are right to be because, in the main, there hasn't been enough contestability and there hasn't been enough competition around some of these fundamental issues to do with the basic things—just getting the basics right: How are we going to fund this nation's government? How much debt are we willing to take on? How are we willing to tax our people, then how are we willing to spend that money?

I guess the main thrust of a lot of these tax reviews over the past 15 or 20 years—and I think the Henry review would have been the main one—was that we accept we are a heavily taxed nation when it comes to the comparisons between peoples and between companies. We're heavy on the direct taxation, and there are other areas where we're not so heavy. So the general vibe has been, 'Well, maybe we should recut that and recalibrate that, and maybe we should find a way to reduce the burden on individuals and companies—particularly on individuals—and then find a way to rebalance that.' Maybe that happens through some sort of a grand deal with the federation, or maybe it doesn't.

I've come to the view that it is a waste of time to sit here and whinge about the states. It's like complaining about the Swiss Alps. You're better off spending your time here trying to focus on the things that we do actually control. There are a lot of things that are under federal control. Whether you're in government, on the crossbench or in opposition, there are things that you can apply pressure to in the federal domain. So I don't think that anyone would have believed that, after all the literature and all the studies, we would end up with nothing really much to alleviate the 'pay as you go' system but a great, huge capital gains tax of a minimum of 30 per cent, with nothing to rebalance. You end up with a system of very high 'pay as you go' income tax and a system of perhaps the highest capital gains tax anywhere that we can find. It's no wonder people are going bananas. They're saying, 'Hang on, how is that right?'

I guess this is really the point: these tax policies have been a shambles. Dr Chalmers would have been sacked if he were working somewhere else. He's had two tax policies in four years. He had a tax policy on unrealised gains; that's collapsed. Now he's had this CGT/housing thing—he calls it that—which has, partially, also collapsed. But the Australian people are going to get stuck with this because of this deal that's been done between the government and the Greens, and we're going to get stuck with this 30 per cent CGT. It's going to be an ugly time for many people, particularly people that don't have a lot of money—they'll be hit with a minimum of 30 per cent.

But, of course, the people who won't pay are the government's best friends at the super funds. The government will hit out at the SMSF people, but they won't touch the APRA regulated super funds, because they are the people that pay for their campaigns and support them. These are the people that they're personally close to, and, when they leave this place, they'll go and be on a board of one of these funds. So, of course, they didn't want to crimp any of their beneficial tax treatment. Ultimately, it's about the government's vested interest. I think the tax system is only going to get worse now, not better, sadly.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition have come into the chamber claiming to defend hard work, investment and ambition while preparing to vote against tax cuts for more than 13 million working Australians and against reforms that will help 75,000 Australians buy their first home. That is not a defence of aspiration; that is a defence of the status quo. Apparently, aspiration is sacred when it belongs to a property investor buying a fifth house but it becomes dangerous when it belongs to a nurse, a teacher or a young family trying to buy their first.

This so-called matter of urgency is not an economic argument; it's a political stunt from a coalition that still cannot accept that Australians have rejected its priorities. The three right-wing parties—the Liberals, the Nationals and One Nation—now have three different logos, one tired script and not a serious economic idea between them. They offer anger but no answers. They offer slogans but no solutions. And every time they're asked what they would actually do, the cupboard is bare.

Labor is delivering a new $250 tax cut for every working Australian. We are delivering a $1,000 instant tax deduction so workers can claim common expenses without keeping a shoebox full of receipts. For an Australian on the average income, our tax changes will mean $2,800 back in their pocket from 2027-28. The coalition calls that toxic. Most Australians call it help with the bills. The coalition loves talking about hard work, yet they keep voting against letting workers keep more of what they earn.

We are also making the housing system fairer. Existing investments are protected, but, from 1 July 2027, negative gearing for future residential investments will be directed to new homes. That means tax concessions will help build supply instead of helping investors outbid first homebuyers for homes that already exist. That's a sensible reform. It supports construction, adds new homes and gives first homebuyers a fairer chance. But the coalition believes the tax system should continue to favour the person buying their next investment property over young Australians trying to buy a place to live. They call that ambition; Australians call it being locked out.

The motion also repeats the scare campaign that Labor is attacking small business. The facts say the opposite. The government listened and acted. Small businesses with turnovers below $10 million will have access to generous capital gains tax concessions. That covers 2.7 million small businesses, or 98 per cent of all active businesses. We are delivering $3.8 billion in new business tax relief, including a permanent $20,000 instant asset write-off, loss carry-back arrangements, and support for startups and investments. So much for the claim that Labor is punishing business.

Now, Senator Colbeck wants Australians to believe Labor has a spending problem. This government is strengthening Medicare, making medicines cheaper, delivering 137 Medicare urgent care clinics, extending paid parental leave to six months and cutting taxes for working people. Those are not wasteful choices; they are the services Australians work hard and pay taxes to support. The real issue before the Senate is simple: will those opposite vote to give working Australians a tax cut, will they vote to help more Australians buy a home, will they back a fairer tax system that supports new housing and protects small business or will they join the same old Liberal, National and One Nation chorus of no?

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Women) | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, I'm going to have to divert from what I was thinking of saying! Senator Brown, it's not Senator Colbeck that thinks the Albanese Labor government has a spending problem; it's actually a fact. The RBA governor has said directly that this government is spending too much. It is a fact. There is a sense of delusion on the other side of the chamber as to what is actually happening in the real world on the streets of Australia. But what happened in here today is a really bad moment for our country because today Australia has entered its quasi-socialist era based on the deal between the Greens and the Australian Labor Party. What I find extraordinary is that you enter this deal—in suggesting that you're protecting disabled Australians, you cut a deal with them today on negative gearing and CGT without the knowledge that you're going to get anything from them. You've traded away the rights of disabled Australians for a tax bill that is actually going to harm young Australians and harm other people. There are actually no outcomes for what you have done. It's quite extraordinary.

Today in your speeches, you talked about Australians being punched down. Guess who was punched down today—a young person saving for a home via shares. They were punched down today. A small-business owner was punched down today by your deal. Someone with an SMSF who wanted to buy residential property was punched down today by your deal. Guess what. If you're a young person saving through shares, if you're a small business owner or if you're someone that's got your own self-managed super fund because you've decided you don't want industry super to have it, you're a bad guy according to the Albanese Labor government and the Australian Greens. You are bad and you must be taxed. However, if you're the CFMEU you get a free ride. If you're a CFMEU participant in corrupt and criminal conduct, you get a free ride, because the Greens will never support an inquiry into their friends from the CFMEU who rorted Victorian taxpayers of $15 billion. We'll pretend that's not happening. We won't talk about the Victorian taxpayer being punched down or what impacts that's had on Australian construction or on Australian small businesses in the construction sector. 'We won't talk about them being punched down. We'll look the other way and pretend it's not happening because that's our mates that are doing that.'

You're also protecting Labor's sacred cows of industry super, the CFMEU and global institutional investors. Guess what. While a mum and dad investor or a young person who's investing in shares to own their own home or somebody that's starting up a small business can't get tax concessions, industry super can and so can a global institutional investor who can come here and build dwellings for Australians to rent forever. They can get a tax concession, but Australians can't do that. It is insane. It is absolute madness. You facilitated that today. You allowed that to happen. You've said Australians can't have the concessions while you are handing out that cash to institutions. You should be ashamed of yourselves, absolutely ashamed. I actually can't believe it. Senator Hodgins-May called it a 'toxic tax agenda'. They were her words. Who facilitated that? How did their toxic tax agenda get a free pass from the Australian Greens? That's how.

Senator Hodgins-May talked about political courage. Where was the political courage to say: 'No, fix the terrible NDIS legislation. Make the amendments. Do it now. Show us what you're going to do. Let the proof be in the pudding'? No, we don't know what's going to happen with that. Disabled Australians don't know, but we do know what's going to happen with the taxes. That's a done deal. It's extraordinary.

Senator Hodgins-May also said we should be prepared to stand up to industries with power and people with influence and money and call them out. How about the CFMEU—influence, power, money, corruption and criminal conduct? Maybe it's time to call them out and say enough is enough. Australians are saying there's enough of that. How about that for a change?

Sue Lines (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the urgency motion moved by Senator Colbeck be agreed to.