QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Senator WONG (South Australia—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:43): Again, what I would say to Senator Cash is, if you look at what the Treasurer spoke about last night, the growth in trusts has been remarkable, and 82 per cent, I think it is—over 80 per cent of trusts—have no underlying business operations. Now, we have been clear about excluding various categories of trusts, including farming trusts and testamentary trusts, but, fundamentally, if you have a tax vehicle where 82 per cent of trusts actually have no underlying business, what that says is, 'Well, perhaps we should actually think about how we provide equitable tax arrangements for those tax arrangements,' and we have done that.

Fundamentally, what this budget does is say we will try and make the taxation of assets more equivalent to the tax that nurses and tradies and plumbers and construction workers and— (Time expired)