Treasury Laws Amendment (Building a Stronger and Fairer Super System) Bill 2026, Superannuation (Building a Stronger and Fairer Super System) Imposition Bill 2026

Mr BIRRELL (Nicholls) (10:37): I too rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Building a Stronger and Fairer Super System) Bill 2026 and the related bill. I think the best thing we could say is that Labor's super mess is back, but this time it's not the original; it's a sequel. I'm trying to forget the original because that was a horror movie.

But the sequel's worse. When the original came out, audiences recoiled in fear, not just at the fact that it was an unfair tax grab but at the sheer unworkability of the legislation. People in my electorate, who work hard and smart to get ahead financially—and a lot of those are farming businesses and family businesses—faced a tax on unrealised capital gains in their superannuation.

To propose taxing paper gains isn't a minor tweak; it is a structural shift that would have set a dangerous precedent across the entire tax base. Equally concerning was the government's refusal to index the $3 million threshold. Over time, more and more people would have been caught up, because bracket creep, something that the current government has refused to address, was part of the design.

People were going to find themselves in a situation of having $3 million of unrealised capital gains. Labor failed to understand that, for many farming businesses across Australia and in my electorate of Nicholls, the main asset in their superannuation is the farm. The farm might go up in value, but it won't be realised.

The farmers want to keep farming. There will be some years that they make a profit, and there'll be some years that they make a loss. If they make a loss but the farm value has gone up, how are they supposed to pay the tax that would be created for them because, on paper, their asset base has gone up?

The agriculture sector has one of the highest retirement ages in Australia, at around 68 years of age. This flawed policy was just a sneaky trick to take their money, to take their hard-earned savings. We on this side often say, 'When Labor run out of money, they come after more of yours.' On this side we fought hard and, with the help of community pressure, we forced Labor to abandon the taxation of unrealised gains and an indexation freeze.

Thanks to the sustained scrutiny from the coalition, the superannuation sector, small-business owners and just everyday Australians who could see what a mess this was, we forced Labor to step back from the most outrageous elements of this proposal. The government backdown tells us that this was never a principled policy decision. It was a blatant grab for revenue to prop up their budget.

There's a question of trust here too. At the last election, Australians were not presented with a policy to tax unrealised capital gains in superannuation and here were Labor trying to legislate it. They were not told that longstanding superannuation settings would be fundamentally altered, but it was there in black and white in legislation before the parliament.

They were not warned that indexation would be stripped away, but Labor tried to do it anyway. Superannuation is not a windfall gain. It's a nest egg.

We support superannuation. We do. Mr Khalil: Really?

Mr BIRRELL: Yes, absolutely. I hear those untruths from the other side that we don't support it. We do support it.

But the emphasis we have on it is that it belongs to the people who have the superannuation funds. What we worry about is that the Labor Party tend to act like it's their money. It's not the government's money.

Superannuation belongs to the people who have the superannuation funds. It comes out of their wages. They earn it.

They work for it. On this side of politics, we've always tried to emphasise that, if it's your money, there needs to be a certain amount of freedom about what happens to it. Many people's superannuation—everyone's superannuation, for that matter—is built over decades and decades of hard work, and the bar is rightly set higher for consent to make substantial changes.

It should be. Labor tried to bypass that by making major structural tax changes without putting them clearly and transparently to the Australian people. Instead, this proposal appeared out of nowhere, with limited consultation and a rushed legislative timetable.

The Labor luminaries didn't support it. From the ACTU, Sally McManus warned: I do think it's got to be indexed because you've got to make sure eventually people don't end up there. But that's a very long time in the future.

Bill Kelty and Paul Keating, the father of modern superannuation, didn't embrace it. And now Labor's super policy is back. I just want to have a think about the mindset of a team that decides that taxing unrealised capital gains is a good idea.

I sit in question time here and I hear the Treasurer interject across the chamber, calling people 'geniuses' in a pejorative way—'Come on, genius,' or, 'Yes, genius!' or, 'Ask me another question, genius.' Well, what type of genius comes up with a tax plan to tax unrealised capital gains? There were so many unworkable issues with this. I had people asking: 'Am I going to have to get my farm valued every year or every three years?

How are they going to work out what the value is? Do people understand how much it costs to value a farm?' Mr Khalil: Unbelievable, Sam! The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Dr Freelander ): Order!

The member is entitled to be heard in silence. Mr BIRRELL: I don't know why they're trying to defend the taxation of unrealised capital gains. It's such a terrible policy.

What I'm trying to outline is that the mindset that thinks that is a good idea is designing our taxation settings. That's what's worrying me. That's what's worrying people in my electorate.

Mr Tim Wilson: It's going to fund organised crime. Mr BIRRELL: Absolutely. So what's different in this bill?

Unrealised capital gains were removed, thanks to the pressure from the coalition and others, and that's a good thing. The government will not be taxing unrealised capital gains, but, by gosh, we had to work hard to get that taken out. Instead, a 30 per cent tax will apply only to realised earnings, actual cash profit for balances between $3 million and $10 million.

To address concerns of bracket creep, the thresholds will now be indexed. But there are new risks in this new legislation. The removal of the effective death tax exemption creates uncertainty for families at precisely the moment they are most vulnerable.

Surviving spouses who rely on superannuation balances to maintain stability after the loss of a partner could face additional tax complexity and reduced security. Total and permanent disability benefit recipients are another cohort that must be considered carefully. These are Australians who, through no fault of their own, are no longer able to work.

Their superannuation is a lifeline. Any change that increases volatility, reduces predictability or complicates access to those funds carries real human consequence. There are low-income superannuation offset increases, and they are welcomed.

But they are modest, and they don't go anywhere near addressing the cost-of-living pressures—and the cost-of-living pressures, at the moment, for Australian people are manifest. Real wages are going down. Interest rates are going up.

Inflation's going up. Energy costs are going up. And why is all this happening?

It's happening because of bad policy. Bad policy means that people's standard of living is going backwards, and people's standard of living won't improve unless we get some good policy. Good policy needs to be about growing the economy.

A future offset adjustment in superannuation does little to relieve all the cost-of-living stresses now, and the government must tackle inflation at its source. Labor has a spending problem, not a revenue and tax problem. I heard this debate yesterday.

It is relevant, when Labor is proposing a tax, for the coalition to try and shed some light on what it wants to spend the tax on. It's people's money. It's people's own hard work.

And, if that money goes towards the Victorian government not managing it properly—on infrastructure bills—and that money finds its way towards corrupt activities, then that is relevant to this debate, because we're talking about taxing people's superannuation accounts. It's their hard work. Where that money goes is relevant, important and absolutely critical.

In my state of Victoria, we're incredibly worried about how much we're being taxed—and this is another tax. But not only are we worried about how much we're being taxed; we're worried about how that money is being spent, and that's a right thing to worry about. Geoffrey Watson SC, in his report on CFMEU corruption, said that the Victorian taxpayers—and the Australian taxpayers, because a lot of the money goes into the Victorian government from the federal government—have had to pay $30 billion extra for infrastructure payments because of corruption in the CFMEU.

That is relevant when we're talking about taxation. Today, it's about superannuation balances above $3 million, but what's it going to be about tomorrow? What's the next threshold?

What's the next asset in the attempt to claw more money from Australians? I can't support this bill, and we in the coalition will be holding the government to account on the bad policy, including this policy, that is failing to grow the economy and causing cost-of-living pressures to escalate. We will also be holding the government to account, when they do tax people, on whether the money is spent correctly and wisely, because it's the people's money, not the government's money.