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

Ms BELL (Moncrieff) (09:26): I would note for the House the lack of enthusiasm from the other side talking about this Labor policy—a proud reform of Labor's with zero enthusiasm from those on the other side. They have to stand up and defend this policy that they know is an economy-wrecking policy. The member for Macnamara opposite had five years in Daniel Andrews's office as a senior adviser before coming to this place with no real-world experience when it comes to managing the economy.

I mean, Dan Andrews isn't exactly the brains trust of the success of the Victorian economy, with the over $200 billion debt that he left behind— Mr Pike: It's better than the statue! Ms BELL: Yes—the bronze statue that everybody can bow at because he's left Victoria in such a great state! It's absolutely disgraceful.

I would also say that the member opposite said that aspiration is wrong in his speech. I'd have to disagree with that because what we see after four years—almost five painful years—of a Labor government is Australia now living under the highest taxing government in our nation's history. Why does this government tax?

It's because it's the only way they can keep spending and keep feeding the beast that is their spending addiction and that is putting our country in such a bad position economically. Of course, these changes to the tax system will—well, who knows what it will do? It will certainly damage our economy.

It will damage aspiration. It will damage the significant Australian value of 'if you have a go, you'll get a go'. At a time when Australians are struggling with the cost-of-living, Labor's answer is not relief.

It's more taxes. It's more spending. It's more debt.

We race towards $1.2 trillion in debt. That is going to cost the next generation $80,000 a minute in interest. How are they going to pay for that?

Higher taxes—that's how they're going to pay for that. This budget is built on broken promise. It's built on toxic taxes, lower living standards and fewer homes.

It says it in the budget papers. Fewer homes as a consequence of these changes—35,000 fewer homes. Before the election, the Prime Minister promised on more than 50 occasions not to introduce these taxes. 'My bond is my word,' he said. 'For the 50th time, we are not going to change the rules.' Now here he is, changing his mind.

What he said was untrue. What he said to the Australian people was deceitful, because Australians were told one thing, and this prime minister has delivered an entirely different thing. He does not have a mandate to deliver these tax changes.

I come back to my original point, which is, when Labor can't manage their own money, they come after yours. So what do they do? They tax, and they're starting with investment taxes, and what's going to be next?

Is it going to be a tax on the family home? Is it going to be a tax on kids' piggy bank savings? Where is this government going to stop when they have to feed the beast with too much spending?

What does too much spending do? When people spend too much money into the economy, what does it do? It pushes up CPI, otherwise known as inflation, which is galloping towards five per cent, and who pays when inflation is above the band of between two and three per cent?

Who is it that pays? It's all Australians, including and especially young Australians, who have to pay more for their everyday groceries. Rents go up.

We know that rents are also in the budget. They're going to go up. Yes, rents will go up and fewer houses will be built as consequences of these changes.

Currently, as your pay goes up with inflation, as I talked about, you can be pushed into higher tax brackets. That is called bracket creep, and that is where the government gets extra revenue from. The only winner is the government, who now take more from you every year without having to change the law.

That is why the coalition wants to see tax thresholds indexed to inflation so that Australians can keep more of what they earn. Our plan fully protects 85 per cent of income earners, delivering relief of around $250 in the first year, up to $500 the next year, $750 the year after that and then $1,000 in year 4 back to you. This is this will be a permanent feature of the tax system.

With Labor's plan, they'll give you $250. Let's have a let's have a little think about what inflation—I talked about it galloping towards five per cent, at 4.6 at the moment. What is that going to look like in the following year?

Let's just say inflation heads to five per cent, gets there and stays there. That means your $250 that you get every year is going to be worth five per cent less every year, whereas the coalition's policy of a tax-back guarantee will actually go up year on year. I think that is a much better option for the Australian public.

What Labor are doing with these changes is sending a very clear message to Australians: work harder, save more, invest wisely, build a business, and the government will take a bigger share. That is the message. These changes are a war on aspiration.

They are an attack on aspirational Australians and on small businesses that are the engine room of our country, the engine room of the Gold Coast economy. Family businesses and those who often have mortgages on their homes to pay for their businesses are the people who work hard to employ other people. This is what they don't get on the other side.

If you have fewer small businesses because they can't afford the wages, the electricity bill or their insurance bill, for example, what happens? Those businesses—newsflash for the other side—go broke. When they go broke, who misses out?

The people who work for those businesses. What happens? Unemployment goes up, and that's what we're seeing happen with the unemployment rate.

It's going up. These changes are an attack on small and family businesses. They're an attack on startups, who now have to pay a 30 per cent tax.

They are an attack on investors and on first home buyers. Let's not forget what will happen. Let's go back to the GFC.

What happened during the GFC? The equity of millions of Americans' homes went down. The housing market went backwards.

As a consequence, those people who didn't have enough equity in their home were in a position where their house was worth less than what they owed on it. This is what this government is risking for the next generation of Australians, those Australians who have recently bought into the property market. The value of their home is now at risk because of terrible management of the economy by this government.

We'll see what happens when that is the position that those aspirational Australians, particularly young couples and young Australians new in the market, are going to face under this government's gross mishandling of the economy. I want to talk about intergenerational fairness. Previous generations, including mine, were told to work hard, save and invest and you'll get ahead, and young Australians deserve the same opportunity.

It's their right to have the same opportunity. Instead, Labor has now moved the goalpost. It's now harder to save for a deposit.

It's harder to buy a home. It's harder to invest in shares and build wealth and start a business. It's not intergenerational fairness.

It's intergenerational betrayal. There are a lot of young people who buy shares to then make a profit in order to save for a deposit for their home. They now have to pay 30 per cent tax on that windfall.

There are a lot of young people who buy a home where they don't live so that they can actually have an investment. They pay rent and live close to mum and dad. On the Gold Coast, this is common.

They might buy a home in the regions and rent it out, and that is no longer available to young people where they can buy an existing home and rent it out and have that as a tax deduction. We reject these toxic taxes, and what we will do is repeal them. I want to talk about small business.

Labor wants nearly half the reward of their work, despite taking none of the risk. Small business owners are not just building businesses; they're creating jobs, as I was talking about before. If you tax them, they will close.

They are at breaking point right now, and they are so important to our national economy and the local economy, certainly on the Gold Coast and around the country. We want to support businesses, so what we will do if we should come to government is increase the instant asset write-off. We'll increase it to $50,000 a year and make it permanent.

Under Labor, it's $20,000 a year. As I recall, when we moved an amendment in this place a few months ago to increase it to $30,000, Labor voted against it. So they want to be seen to be supporting small business, but it's not in their DNA like it is on this side of the House, where many of us, including me, had our first job in a small business.

We understand how to run a small business. We've run small businesses. I had my own for 12 years, a consultancy.

It's true. I worked as a sole trader. I understand what it is to fill in a BAS.

I understand what it is to chase the next job. This is what holds our government up. So what we want to do is make sure that we have tradies who can invest in their tools, farmers who can buy equipment up to $50,000, cafes upgrading their kitchens—if there are any left by the time this government is done—and small businesses who can invest with confidence.

Ninety-eight per cent of Australian businesses are small businesses. When small businesses invest, they grow. When small businesses grow, Australia grows.

If you tax something more, you'll get less of it, and this Labor government wants less small businesses in our nation. I want to talk about debt. It's the next generation who are going to inherit this debt.

It's heading towards $1.25 trillion, in fact, and, as I said before, that is going to cost you, as a young person, into the next generations $80,000 every minute just in interest alone. Today's debt is indeed tomorrow's taxes. Government spending does not create productivity or economic growth.

It creates inflation that we will all, especially young people, have to pay into the future. We here in the coalition want to restore fiscal responsibility and to ensure real intergenerational fairness through our Future Generations Fund. By banking resource revenue, we can pay down debt and build national infrastructure without passing the burden onto future generations.

In terms of housing, Labor's brought in 1.5 million people while failing to build enough homes. Their own budget papers, as I said before, show 35,000 fewer homes under these tax changes—because, if you tax something, you'll get less of it. You take out the determination that people have to get ahead.

If you tax it, it takes all the aspiration out of it. Before young Australians can buy a home, they rent, and Labor's own budget papers admit that rents will rise. Labor's making housing less affordable at every single stage.

What the coalition wants to do is restore common sense to housing and migration by making sure Australia only brings in as many people as it can house. It makes sense. It's just a commonsense approach.

If we don't have enough houses for the people who are coming into our country—no matter where they're coming from—then it's not a good position for our country to be in. We need to be able to house our own population before we can house those people coming from other countries. What we want to do is establish a $5 billion housing infrastructure fund to unlock up to 400,000 homes.

That's 400,000 homes with infrastructure—pipes, electricity and that sort of thing—so that we have more houses in the supply chain so that we can house more Australians. What that will look like is that the minister for housing will stand up and give a report on exactly how many houses have been built. There will be a tie to migration—immigration—to make sure that we can actually keep up with demand.

In closing, what I will say is that the Prime Minister said that there will be no more wedges when he came to this place. But he's actually a prevaricator, he's a fabricator, he's a fabulist, he's a mythomaniac and he is a gigantic fibber.