ADJOURNMENT

Ms McKENZIE (Flinders) (19:49): The biggest tax hike in this year's budget isn't on billionaires. It's on ordinary Australians who have spent decades building assets and planning for their retirement so as not to be a burden on the state. For my constituents in Flinders, it's not that the Albanese government's budget misses the mark.

It puts a target on the back of every single person who has worked hard, saved hard and planned for the future. And nowhere is that clearer than Labor's changes to capital gains tax. A few weeks ago I sat at a community lunch next to a bloke who, together with his wife, had run first one, then two and then tens of cake shops across Melbourne before he retired and passed on the business to others.

He said to me, 'If this budget's changes were made back then, all those 4 am mornings of baking cakes and biscuits would have been for nothing.' This is one of the many stories I have heard around my electorate. It's not just one family but generations of families who have built up a small business from scratch. And there are others who may have invested and developed property or managed to keep a family holiday home across generations despite ever increasing tax grabs from state Labor.

Now there's this ultimate slap in the face: when you sell, Labor will not just be taking a slice of the pie; it'll be taking up to half. Flinders will be one of the hardest hit electorates in the country. That's because we are a community of tradies, farmers, small-business owners and retirees who have spent years building something from scratch and paying all our taxes.

According to analysis from the ATO and the Treasury, more than $300 million in capital gains tax discounts are claimed by Flinders residents. That's the 12th highest rate anywhere in the country. And it's not because we're a community of millionaires but because we're a community of investors, business owners and retirees.

On average, in my electorate, we are both poorer and older than the average Victorian, but we are also spectacularly self-reliant. When people retire, they downsize. They pass the business they've spent 30 years building onto the next owner.

And that's exactly, now, when Labor will pounce. It's not just the older generations who've been hit by Labor's war on aspiration and wealth. When governments make it harder to build up savings and value, easier to tax success and less attractive to invest, they send a message to the next generation: your ambition is my revenue source.

Last week I received a letter from a couple at the other end of their aspiration journey. It reads: My wife and I are in our early 30s and live in Somers. We are exactly the kind of people who thought we were doing the right thing financially.

Instead of buying multiple investment properties, we spent years saving carefully and investing into ETFs and shares. Our goal was simple: to slowly build enough wealth over decades to eventually fund our own retirement and reduce reliance on the pension system. Like many Australians, we used a family trust structure for flexibility and long-term planning.

We always understood that we would pay tax on gains when assets were eventually sold, but that those gains would flow through and be taxed at our marginal rates. Under the proposed minimum 30% CGT and trust changes, that entire plan effectively stops making sense. It feels incredibly discouraging for younger Australians who followed the advice we were always given: work hard, save consistently, invest responsibly and try to become self-sufficient.

The emotional impact of these changes has honestly been significant. It feels like the rules are being rewritten midway through the game, and that younger Australians are being locked out of the same opportunities previous generations had to build long-term financial security. New Zealand is after all only a short plane ride away, and we'd have visas instantly, and could have our tax residency changed pretty quickly.

It makes sense for us to just pay off our mortgage, and then move there before accumulating large gains that the ATO will tax to oblivion. I run a business remotely, and so could work from anywhere. So frankly, leaving Australia would be very easy.

I know many Australians are feeling similarly, especially entrepreneurs who fear a massive CGT bill when they sell. With a more mobile and globalised business world, it's easier than ever for us to lose our capital and, importantly, our talent to other countries. Labor and their friends on the crossbench like to talk about fairness and intergenerational inequity, but, when they call for the CGT discount to be wound back, they're actually calling for higher taxes on thousands of people on the Mornington Peninsula—hardworking, independent minded people who now wonder what value we, as Australians, put on a life of sacrifice.