Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Bill 2026, Income Tax Rates Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Bill 2026

Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (16:25): It's so good to see all the Labor members in the chamber voting to make sure I can give this speech. I know the Treasurer himself has said he has come into this chamber to vote so that I can give this speech. On budget night, Australians who ordinarily may not pay much interest in politics or be interested in the budget, because they go, 'It's just the government managing its own finances,' got an earthquake.

The self-starters and small businesses of the nation found out that they were being utterly betrayed by the Albanese government on so many levels. The government has come along and broken promises to the Australian community which they took to the last election, from their family savings taxes to their death taxes, taxes on homes and taxes on rent. It doesn't matter what they are.

The government is seeking to betray the Australian community in its higher taxing agenda. We hear from the members opposite, including the 'trainwreck Treasurer', about how good these new taxes are for the Australian community. Well, if that's true, have the courage to take it to an election, because we don't need a coward's castle of people putting policy after an election.

It's time you actually own the consequences of it. We heard the member for Maribyrnong before foolishly signing herself up to the Albanese Titanic, because she thinks somehow that this is going to be working for them. Well, as I've said before, it is a bastard budget of broken promises.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): Member for Goldstein, we will withdraw that comment immediately. Mr TIM WILSON: On what grounds? The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Unparliamentary language—and you know that full well.

Withdraw, please. Mr TIM WILSON: I'll happily withdraw. But I've said it before: 50 times over, we had a prime minister who said that they would not introduce these taxes, and we had the deceit, dishonesty and misleading of the Australian people that have come from this prime minister.

And now we have so many stories that have come through the Not the Tax We Voted For website that have told the stories of Australians and how they have been betrayed by this government and this budget. They know the full consequences of what this government is seeking to achieve. They know it's about taking from them and betraying their trust.

And I can assure you: every single Labor member that goes to the next election is going to be tied to this trainwreck budget by this 'trainwreck Treasurer'. There are four sections of this budget. The first one is the betrayal on capital gains tax.

The second one is the betrayal on negative gearing. The third one is on the working Australians tax offset, and the fourth one is focused on their standard deduction for work related expenses. We absolutely oppose schedules 1 and 2, and we absolutely support schedules 3 and 4.

But, of course, in their tricky, meanspirited way, just as they did before the last election, they're tying the two bits of the bill together to try and justify why they should be able to get away with it. Well, the Australian people won't buy it. Just like they now see the deceit from the government, they will see the deceit through this legislation, because you just can't take this government seriously.

You can't take this 'trainwreck Treasurer' seriously. He doesn't take the truth seriously. He doesn't take inflation seriously.

And he certainly doesn't take interest rates seriously. We have the Treasurer, who continues to stoke an active inflation agenda, playing a game of interest rate chicken with the Reserve Bank governor. In the face of the problems that he's created, his only answer now is to crash the economy through higher taxes.

Of course, this massive tax hike which is targeting Australians is going to be one that is going to hang as a millstone around their neck, because, while businesses are struggling to get ahead and while small businesses are struggling to pay wages and keep their doors open, the reality is the government is coming along and punching down on those businesses and making it harder for them to get ahead.

It's not just in the costs they're imposing through higher taxes, but it is how they are acting every step of the way to stoke inflation, which is increasing business costs. They have an active inflation agenda which involves stoking the inflation, taxing the inflation and spending the inflation then wash, rinse, repeat. The Treasurer might think it's funny to play a game of interest rate chicken with the Reserve Bank governor, but I can assure you the Australian people do not feel so.

They know how bad inflation is because they're living with it, and they're living with higher interest rates as a consequence. What we hear instead—the government can't answer any questions. We sat through question time, and the government couldn't answer what a new home was.

The government couldn't answer the question of whether they had modelled how quickly inflation was going to take away their working Australian tax offset. They couldn't answer basic questions about their budget, but what they can do is throw around talking points thinking they can continue to perpetuate the deceit they are engaging on the Australian community.

My favourite one is from the Treasurer, and he screams out, 'Anyone who disagrees with me must be talking down the economy.' Sorry, Treasurer, wake up. It's called the truth. You are running down the Australian economy.

The Albanese government is running down the Australian economy, and now it is seeking to crash the economy, and this is a disaster, through their higher tax agenda targeting small businesses who are the most likely to employ and give people their first job and the most likely to be able to stand up and get ahead. His only answer is to punch down on those small businesses and the self-employed through this budget.

Despite everything this government are doing, they will not break the backs of the Australian people, and they most certainly will not break our backs. I can assure you, when Australians go to the next election, they will have an absolute choice between a government that is focused on growing the economy and giving Australians a chance to get ahead, empowering them through not just their own energy and aspiration but a sense of belief about what we can achieve together, or we can perpetuate the Albanese government, and we know full well where that is going to end, where renters pay more according to the government's own budget documents, where first home owners struggle to get ahead because the government is going to build 35,000 new homes while they continue to overreach on their migration targets so we have more people looking for fewer homes.

We can have a government that goes beyond the idea of simply being dependent on government or working for government or big business bureaucracies, because, in an environment of lower taxes backing self-starters and small businesses, they can get ahead. There is hope on the blue Liberal horizon. That starts with repealing these awful taxes that the government is putting forward.

Whether it's their changes to capital gains tax, negative gearing or trusts, the direct assault on the self-starters of this country will end. We will make sure that those Australians who back themselves get ahead and it isn't simply if they cosy up to the Labor Party to be able to get ahead. Second, we're going to stop the Treasurer pouring debt petrol on the inflation fire.

This treasurer is addicted to spending and cannot stop borrowing from tomorrow to pay for today, because he has no vision and no plan for the Australian economy. We're going to stop the Treasurer doing this and make sure that the budget is in a position where we can make sure that doesn't contribute to inflation. Third, we're going to introduce our tax-back guarantee, which means we'll keep tax rates in check with inflation so the Treasury, the tax office and the Treasurer thieves can't steal wages by stealth.

In addition to that, we're going to increase the instant asset write-off for small business to $50,000 and make it permanent. We can have a better future. We can have an Australia where those who work hard get ahead, where hard work pays off, where people feel respected and where they are in control of their lives.

We can have an Australia where Australians who work hard, live out their dream and their aspiration through every stage of their life, from getting a good education to building their own effort, investing in their own future, buying a home, having a family and retiring with security. But there's one sure-fire way we will not get this, which is the perpetuation of the Albanese government, because we have seen in this budget that they have declared open war on the aspirations of Australians.

They have declared war on anybody who is saving to get themselves ahead and build a business. We hear these cute little arguments about carve-outs or limitations or exemptions. But the only way you get those exemptions is if you age yourself out or if you're not as successful as you'd hoped you'd be.

The reality of the government is that they actually want Australians to fail. They want limitations and shortcomings rather than success. If this government were seriously interested in boosting the aspirations of Australians, it would want them to do better than the exemptions under the small-business definition of the capital gains tax.

They would want them looking to a blue liberal horizon with confidence and hope—unless, of course, you're a tech billionaire. Because the teals want to give an exemption to them, they're cosying up to the government and getting it. I know most of this speech has been critical of the budget, but I'm sure, Deputy Speaker Claydon, you would remember, as I'm sure the member for Casey and the member for Cook do, and maybe even some of the Labor members remember, when the teals wanted a truth-in-political-advertising bill.

Remember that? Mr Violi: Yes. Mr TIM WILSON: That involved telling the truth before an election.

Yet somehow none of them seem even remotely interested in that, when, since the election, the Prime Minister has betrayed the Australian community and broken a series of promises. It's almost like they never really cared, just like they don't really care about integrity, because we have the member for Wentworth arguing for some of her biggest donors to have exemptions from the very capital gains taxes she advocated for.

This is the deceit—the whole cabal of them working together to undermine Australian aspiration and Australians getting ahead, and they've been called out.