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

Mr TEHAN (Wannon—Manager of Opposition Business) (21:44): Fighting for you starts in the 300 wonderful communities of Wannon and ends up here in the federal parliament. On behalf of all my constituents, I stand here tonight to say, 'Enough is enough.' This budget of broken promises needs to be destroyed. It is built on a house of mistruths, a house of broken promises and a house of deceit, and it deserves to collapse under the weight of that deceit.

Let me start by the very fact that all these bills have been brought together, so we will not have a chance to vote for them individually. What was one of the first promises that this prime minister made? He said that there would be no more division and there would be no more votes designed to fully wedge oppositions.

That was one of the first commitments he made as Prime Minister, yet what do we have here today? We have a cognate bill. For those who don't understand what a cognate bill is, that's where you take two or three or four different bills and join them together because you want to try and play games with the opposition.

The Prime Minister said he didn't want to do that anymore, as one of the first promises he made to you as the Australian people, and yet here we are. He doesn't care. He's breaking that promise like he's breaking the promises he made to you not to change negative gearing and the capital gains tax regime.

Yet what are we doing here tonight? We are trying to defeat a bill which does exactly that because this prime minister, sadly, cannot lie straight on a yoga mat. That is the truth, and that is why we're here, and that is what we are debating.

I say this to the government. What you have done is so wrong that it's unconscionable, and the Australian people are going to punish you for it. You do not even know the detail of your own budget, so how can they know it, and how can you expect this parliament to pass it?

My hope is that those in the Senate, especially the crossbench, will see good, see righteousness, see truth and do the right thing. They will say to the government: 'Sorry, you need proper committee processes. You have to understand the detail in your own bill, and you need to go back to the drawing board on it.' It's been quite embarrassing listening to them, especially the Prime Minister and the Treasurer and the Minister for Housing, try and explain the detail of these bills.

They can't. They don't know them. We've seen the Treasurer take the extraordinary steps of giving himself enormous power to fill in the details afterwards because he doesn't know the detail yet.

We've got the Prime Minister just confused about what's in the bill, and the Minister for Housing cannot define what a new dwelling is. This budget is meant to be pro housing, yet the minister can't even define what a new dwelling is. It's a complete and utter joke, and that is why it needs to be defeated.

I say to all my coalition colleagues a huge thank you for knowing what is right and for knowing on instinct that we do not want to back or support this budget of deceit. There are others who want to speak, so I won't go into all the things that are wrong with this budget, but I want to make three points. The first point is that, if the government in any way tries to kid the Australian people that this is a budget of lower taxes, it is the most complete, utter rubbish that has been ever uttered out of anyone's mouth.

These bills and this budget increase taxes in this nation by $77 billion—not a piddling amount, $77 billion. That is fact one as to why these bills need to go down. Fact two: they will kill enterprise in this country.

Anyone who wants to have a go will be penalised. If you want to enjoy the same tax arrangements the Prime Minister did, you will not be able to. If you want to use the same tax arrangements that, I think, 21 of 23 members of the cabinet used, you will not be able to.

This budget and these bills kill enterprise. That's two of the three points I want to make tonight: $77 billion in new taxes, and these bills and this budget kill enterprise. The third and final point is a simple one: this budget and these bills are built on the greatest deceit modern politics in Australia has ever seen.

I cannot recall such deceit. I cannot recall a prime minister saying to the Australian people, for the 50th time, 'I will not do this,' and then turning around after an election and doing it—over 50 times. Forget about the cock crowing three times; the Prime Minister crowed over 50 times, yet here we are dealing with that deceit, 12 months after an election.

That is why this government does not have a mandate for these bills. That is why, from a coalition point of view, we oppose them—and there are many, many other reasons why we oppose them. I could continue right up to 10 o'clock, but I know the member for Riverina also wants to talk tonight and I do not want to deny him his ability to talk on these bills, because my worry is that, tomorrow morning, the government will come in and gag, guillotine and shut down debate on this—another unconscionable thing they will do.

I will leave it here: $77 billion in extra taxes, killing enterprise and built on broken promises. What a disgrace!