Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Collins has submitted a proposal under standing order 75, today, which has also been circulated and is shown on the Dynamic Red:

Labor's failure to fix its unfair widow tax, instead voting to punish widows, divorcees and families who have worked hard, saved and planned for their future.

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.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) | Link to this | 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—

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister Ayres, on a point of order?

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) | Link to this | Hansard source

I know there's no standing order that properly applies to this, but a few more references to the Dodgey Brothers would be very appreciated by all of us over here.

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't believe there's a point of order there.

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

I'll try my best! This is where we say, 'On this stuff, if you expect others to do it, do it yourself.' Don't bring legislation through that has consequences for people at their lowest. When they are getting divorced or when they have lost a loved one, have some compassion and get that right. Don't say, 'At an unknown time in the future, we will fix it,' because we don't know it will be fixed. We don't know it will be right. If you don't know what the effects are going to be this time, how will you know what the effects will be of what you bring forward next time? How do we know there won't be a deal between now and then, like we saw with the deal on superannuation with the Greens, that doesn't bring this forward?

It is not good enough to hurt people by omission. I know it wasn't the intention, but, when it was pointed out, it shouldn't have taken long to fix. An amendment could have been drafted. We heard today in question time that there is no time. They weren't able to name a time when a brief went out for the amendments. Don't hurt people. If you do the right thing at the get-go, we won't have this problem and this won't hurt people.

Charlotte Walker (SA, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

You have to admire the coalition's timing. On the very day that Australians wake up to another tax cut, paid parental leave expands to six months, payday super begins, Medicare gets stronger, hospitals receive more funding and workers keep more of what they earn, the Liberal Party decide that the most important thing facing the country is a political slogan they've cooked up. It's not about housing, wages, the cost of living or the fact that young Australians have been locked out of homeownership for too long. Instead, we get another weird political stunt. I suppose, when you're an opposition that's still moving backwards in the polls, that's probably all you've got left.

Let's be clear about what's happened here: the Treasurer has already said the government will address the arrangements around jointly held assets in circumstances like death and divorce, in subsequent legislation. We've said we'll fix it. We've said that there are technical issues to work through, and we've been upfront that significant tax reform is being legislated in stages, as governments of both political persuasions have done for decades. This is hardly revolutionary. The GST wasn't legislated in one hit. Most major reforms haven't been. When you're rewriting parts of the tax system, you need to take the time to get the details right. What Australians deserve is a tax system that's fair, workable and durable, not one that's rushed together for a press release.

While the coalition wants to spend today manufacturing outrage, Labor is getting on with delivering reform. From today, more than 13 million Australians receive another tax cut, workers will now pay thousands less tax than they would have under the system we inherited, small businesses get certainty through the permanent instant asset write-off, parents get six months of paid parental leave and workers start earning super from payday instead of waiting months and hoping their employer pays up. These are real reforms, and they make a real difference.

Let's compare this to the alternative. The same Liberal Party criticising this package voted against tax cuts for 13 million workers. They went to the last election promising to repeal those tax cuts. Senator Hume called them 'egregious'. Apparently, letting ordinary Australians keep more of their own money is controversial. It's an interesting set of priorities. And, while they're busy running scare campaigns, they're still defending a housing system that rewards speculation while too many young Australians can't even get their foot in the door.

That's why our reforms matter. They're about helping first home buyers and backing workers. They're about making sure the income earned from hard work isn't treated less favourably than income earned from owning assets. They're about creating a tax system that reflects the Australia we are trying to build, not the one that's left too many people behind. If we're serious about aspiration, then aspiration can't only be for people who already own everything. It has to include the young couple trying to buy their first home, a nurse saving for a deposit, the apprentice putting away money each week and the teacher wondering whether homeownership is drifting further away every year. Those Australians deserve a government willing to tackle difficult reforms, and, yes, difficult reforms involve detail. They involve consultation to make sure unintended consequences are properly addressed. That's exactly what we're doing. Meanwhile, the coalition seems determined to oppose every measure that helps working Australians while pretending they are the champions of fairness, and Australians can see through it. They know the difference between governing and grandstanding.

Today is a good day for millions of Australians: another tax cut, more support for families, more help for workers, more investment in hospitals and Medicare, a stronger superannuation system—all measures that improve productivity, support businesses and help more Australians get ahead. That's what this government is focused on. The coalition can keep chirping nonsense if they like; we'll keep delivering reforms that actually improve people's lives. That's what Australians elected us to do and that's exactly what we will continue to do.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

We thank Senator Collins for this motion. One Nation supports it. The 'widow tax' in the budget relates to the grandfathering of negative gearing on existing homes. Under this government's budget, passed with Greens support, if a couple own a negatively geared home and one partner dies, or they divorce, the home loses grandfathered status and starts attracting capital gains tax at the new, higher rate.

Senator David Pocock first raised this in Senate estimates on 16 June so the government has had plenty of time to get this fixed. I wonder: Was this measure typical of this government's history? A failure to think things through? Or an attempt to sneak the measure through? The budget's dishonest theme is 'intergenerational wealth'. So a widow tax fits the supposed agenda of taking wealth from older Australians into government coffers and supposedly giving some of that back to young Australians—their own money that they would have inherited anyway—and then the government expects the young to vote Labor for this fake generosity. What deceit.

Another measure that fits this dishonest sales pitch to young people is scrapping the private health insurance rebate for older Australians. This is a system to reduce healthcare premiums for older Australians, to keep them in the private health system, and minimise public healthcare costs the young pay. Currently, this rate is 24.6 per cent for over 65s, rising to 32.8 per cent for over 70s. The Albanese government reduced this figure to 24.1 per cent for all ages. Another example of ideology over sense—not intended to be sensible or fair; intended to demonise older Australians and falsely serve them up to young people as the reason they can't get ahead. It's the politics of deceit and division that Labor's budget promoted.

This discount exists because older Australians have paid into the system their whole lives. They consume more health services and if, on their retirement, they can't afford health insurance anymore they'll give it up and return to the public system, which the government's own modelling says will happen, increasing costs for the young. It's even worse in the bush. Industry reviews warn that regional private hospitals, where up to 70 per cent of patients who are insured are over 65, face sudden financial unviability and forcing health system closures and pushing entire communities exclusively into the public system.

This is a disaster for those Australians who grow your food, grow the cotton and wool in your clothes, and mine the minerals in your computers, phones and your expensive, damaging solar panels, wind turbines and renewables. The city lives off the wealth created in the bush—that is a fact—and yet this government declares war on the bush through this healthcare change, through arbitrary environmental regulations and through water mismanagement, stealing farmers irrigation water, and much more. All Labor and the Greens do is set Australians against Australians. No wonder so many people are saying 'Fire the liar'! (Time expired)

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Skills and Training) | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor had a really simple test this week, a really simple opportunity to do the right thing, and that was to protect widows, to protect divorcees and to protect Australian families during some of the hardest moments in their lives. But they failed miserably. Instead, Labor voted for higher taxes. That tells Australians everything they need to know about this government. They say they're the party of compassion and yet their actions tell a completely different story. They promised lower taxes but they delivered yet another tax grab. They call it reform, but Australians know exactly what it is. It's another toxic tax, another broken promise. They're pretty good at those, too—over 50 times from our Prime Minister—because Labor can't manage money. So they come after yours. Australians, they come after yours. They tax your work, they tax your savings, they tax your investment, and, of course, they tax aspiration. When a husband loses his wife, Labor sees another tax bill. When a wife loses her husband, Labor sees another tax bill. When a marriage breaks down, Labor sees another opportunity for a tax bill.

These aren't loopholes; they are life events. There is nothing sophisticated about losing the person you love, and there is nothing aggressive about trying to settle a family estate. There's nothing unfair about wanting to pass on what you've worked hard for. Australians shouldn't be treated like tax minimisers simply because of tragedy, and that has ended their lives. No Australian chooses to become a widow or widower. No Australian plans for their marriage to end. These aren't tax avoidance schemes. They're moments of grief. They're moments of uncertainty, when families are trying to rebuild their lives. Those are the moments when government should show compassion, not send another tax bill. Government should stand beside Australians in their darkest moments, not stand there with its hand out seeking money. Grief should never become a revenue stream.

That is why this tax is so profoundly callous. It punishes Australians who have already been dealt one of life's toughest hands. And why? This government cannot control its own spending. It is hurtling towards $1 trillion in debt. Governments that run out of money always come after your money. That is the story of this government. Every problem has the same answer: another tax, another excuse to punish Australians who have worked hard and another way for Labor to cover up its own failures. Today it's widows; tomorrow it will be family businesses. One by one, Labor is coming after Australians who have done the right thing. The day after that—well, who knows, with the uncertainty and deceit? This is bigger than one bad law. It is a pattern. It's a government that taxes work, that taxes savings, that taxes investment and that taxes aspiration. And, when it runs out of places to tax, it comes along and it taxes grief.

Labor says it will fix this later. Well, that's simply not good enough. Australians don't expect parliament to pass bad laws and promise to clean up afterwards. They expect us to get it right before that law becomes law. That is the standard Australians deserve. If you know legislation hurts widows and divorcees, don't pass it. You stop it. The legislation should never have been introduced. It should never have been passed. It should never remain on the statute books.

Labor taxes hardship. The coalition rewards hard work, and that's exactly what we'll do. That's why we'll scrap Labor's toxic taxes and reward aspiration instead of punishing it—because no Australian should ever receive a tax bill simply because they've lost the person they love. No government should profit from grief. Labor has run out of places to tax, so now they're taxing misery.

Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians deserve to have an honest debate about tax. Instead, they are getting a scare campaign courtesy of the coalition that is, true to form, based on slogans. There they are—the coalition, inventing a new tax when they really should be spending more time developing substantive policies. And that is being reflected. This negligent void around policy development is being reflected in their plummeting fortunes in the polls. Australians have cottoned on. They have clued on to the fact that the coalition have nothing to offer them.

We genuinely understand the concerns that Australians have around these jointly held assets, and the Treasurer has been explicit in saying that we will introduce subsequent legislation to address these concerns. I might remind everyone that the last time landmark generational reform was done in this country was in 1999, around the GST, and the then Howard government had to introduce over 100 amendments across 16 pieces of legislation to tidy up these grey legal areas. It is not unusual for this sort of thing to happen with generational reform.

Today is a day where Australians are going to be receiving some critical adjustments to their personal finances. This Labor government is responding to the sustained cost-of-living pressure Australians have been feeling, and we are responding with tax cuts. Starting from today, Australians will receive a tax cut which will put an additional $270, roughly, into their pocket this year, and then around $540 from next year. With all five tax cuts that we have delivered, we expect the average worker to receive an additional $2,800 in their pocket, starting in the next 12 months. This is also on top of the working Australian tax offset we introduced in the budget—architecture that is designed to put an additional $250 into people's pockets, starting from next year.

On this day, we're seeing an increase to the minimum wage. It's only Labor governments that back in increases to things like the minimum wage. For the first time, the minimum wage will crack $1,000 per week, and that will benefit young people, people who work part time, women, casuals, people who work in retail and hospo, people on our farms and people in the services industries. It'll make a significant difference to their finances.

We're also introducing payday super today. This means workers will have their super paid alongside their wages, and they will benefit from that gift of compounding interest that super delivers. It means an average 25-year-old worker will retire with an additional $5,000, roughly, in their retirement savings. It is significant.

We are introducing a $1,000 tax deduction, with no receipts needed for workers. This should help a bit over six million workers—around half of all taxpayers. We're making it easy for working Australians to claim back their tax.

In addition to this, we're also boosting paid parental leave by another 10 days, taking it up to 26 weeks. It means families will receive an additional $30,000 over this period, and it will enable them to spend more time with their newborn child.

In addition to this, we are making permanent our Medicare urgent care clinics, which have been visited by over three million Australians. We have cheaper meds, costing $25 per script. And today, in parts of Australia, in New South Wales, South-East Queensland and South Australia, eligible households will be able to apply for three hours of free electricity between the hours of 11 and two, through the solar sharer program; Victorians will kick off on 1 October.

All this adds up to substantive cost-of-living relief, and it builds upon a very exciting bill that we introduced today which is cracking down on unfair trading practices—things that drive consumers crazy, like drip pricing and subscription traps that you can never seem to escape. This is how this Labor government is responding in kind to the cost-of-living pressures that Australians feel. (Time expired)

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Shadow Treasurer) | Link to this | Hansard source

There are only one or two ways to have a look at or to understand the budget papers. One way is to regard the government as totally incompetent. Why else would the government have introduced a grief tax? Why else would the government have introduced a donations tax? Why else would the government have increased taxes on mum-and-dad investors around mineral exploration? If you think the government doesn't know what it's doing, you might come to the conclusion that the government is just incompetent.

The other conclusion you can come to is that the government is deceitful—that the government knows exactly what it is doing and it has chosen to tax widowers and widows, and was hoping to get away with it; that they consciously knew that their taxes would hurt charitable giving, would hurt community and not-for-profit organisations and would hurt philanthropy, and that they hoped to get away with it. Well, in fact, they have actually got away with it, because Labor senators from Western Australia are not raising any concerns whatsoever about Labor's plans to tax mum-and-dad investors in mineral exploration.

So, if we are to have an honest debate about the government's budget, there are only one or two pathways you can choose: that the government is acting incompetently, or that the government is acting deceitfully—that it knows exactly what it is doing. I'm someone who thinks, who believes, that the government knows what it's doing, the government was hoping to get away with it, and, thanks to the outrage of many ordinary Australians, it has been caught with its hand in the till.

There can be no tax cuts, no cost-of-living relief and no minimum-wage benefit if the government does not tackle this—and this is inflation. Inflation eats away at any benefits workers might get through minimum-wage increases. Inflation eats away at any cost-of-living relief that the government might give people through the budget. That is the demon that the government has been unable to control—inflation. And, when inflation remains uncontrolled in the economy, guess who pays for that? Pensioners pay for that. Families pay for that. Small businesses pay for that. The government doesn't pay for it; the government actually is a beneficiary of heightened levels of inflation in the economy.

So, when the government talks about cost-of-living relief, it's because it doesn't want to talk about inflation. And why doesn't it want to talk about inflation? Because inflation is fuelled primarily through government spending. We know that this government—the Labor government under Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers, supported by Labor senators—is the highest-spending government in 40 years, outside of the pandemic and outside of a recession. Think about that: it's the highest-spending government in 40 years. That is fuelling inflation in the economy, because the government lacks the discipline, the government lacks the economic guts, to make hard decisions. When inflation is too high, the RBA is forced to put interest rates up. And who pays for that? Families—especially young families; families with mortgages.

So this is a conscious decision by this Labor government to make life harder for Australians, not to make life easier, and what's really remarkable about that is that, in May 2022, when Anthony Albanese, then the opposition leader, was working hard to try and become the Prime Minister, he gave people a commitment. He said that life would be easier under Labor. He said it in Perth, Western Australia: that life would be easier under Labor.

Australians know there is only one truth, and that is that life has got considerably more difficult for Australians under Labor. Living standards are falling. Productivity growth is slipping. Australians know our country is getting poorer under Labor. Unfortunately, this is a budget of deceit and a budget of broken promises.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

We have about two minutes left, if anyone else wants to make a contribution; otherwise, we'll move on. No? The time for discussion of that item has now expired.