Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027

Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (18:02): It's such a train wreck of a budget that we have right now, and one of the worst things is the complete failure and unwillingness of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer to answer basic questions of the Australian community about the impact the budget is having—how it's kneecapping young Australians and kneecapping small businesses, rather than backing them in for a pathway to growth.

It doesn't seem to matter what question we ask in question time or in this chamber—the minister barely even turns up, let alone answer a question. They either don't understand their budget, or they don't care about the impact it's going to have on Australians. I raised this question this morning and there was still no answer from the sneaky Treasurer, who spends an awful lot of time promoting 'doubleplus untruths', as we'd call it in Newspeak—I don't want to be unparliamentary—about the impacts and his data, just to spin a line to get himself out of a tricky situation.

Have you ever seen that episode of South Park where people get this problem of smug and they can't see through the smug? That's certainly what it's like when the Treasurer is in question time. I raised the example this afternoon of what impact the budget is going to have on trusts.

Through our notthetax.com.au website, we've collected a lot of stories that have stepped through the impact to trusts. I'll use this one example: 'In 1968, my first child'—I'll leave out their name—'was born with a brain injury. He lives in care.

He's unable to tie his shoelaces or even add one and one. When I die, he will not be capable of handling an inheritance or managing the challenges of siblings. Therefore we established a discretionary trust to administer his share equitably and to make sure that he was able to live a dignified life, despite his brain injury.' What's the Albanese government's solution to that, Member for Mitchell?

The answer is to tax it. Chuck a minimum 30 per cent tax on people with a disability. When we used similar examples in the House of Representatives and asked the Prime Minister whether he was going to impose taxes on people with a disability, he dismissed it as though there were no problem at all; he even denied that it was going to happen.

This government can't answer basic questions about its budget. I think it's actually because they don't understand their budget, and I think we're more seeing and more evidence of that. The slippery treasurer—I could come up with a different word, but I'll just leave it at 'treasurer'—might think he can dart his way in and dart his way out, but eventually economic reality will catch up with him.

You need to answer basic questions, Treasurer, because what you spin isn't what Australians are living. I know the Prime Minister goes into question time—and the Treasurer does the same—and says that Australians have never had it so good under the Albanese government, but the reality is something quite different. We've had a three per cent decline in real wages since the start of the Albanese government.

There have been record small business insolvencies—that's jobs, that's aspiration, that's hope and, of course, that's employment. Every time somebody wants to work hard to get ahead, under the Albanese government the answer is to punch down at them and to tax them. Even worse than that, they don't want them to succeed.

Since the budget, we've had examples of small businesses that are concerned about the impact these tax changes are going to have on them in the future, and the Treasurer wants them to fail so that they fall short. What a despicable act from a government—to want the citizens of their own country to fail at commerce, to want them not to be fully successful or able realise their ambitions and their dreams.

That's what makes me so angry. They won't even answer basic questions. 'Minister, has the government modelled how quickly the tax cuts that you're offering in this budget will be overtaken by receipts from inflation, and, if so, when will it be overtaken?' We asked that yesterday. Did we get an answer?

No. Zip. Zero. 'Minister, can the government guarantee that, under the budget, a worker on the median wage will be better off in real terms next financial year, once you factor in inflation?' They couldn't answer that one either.

We know the reason why. It's because Australian workers won't be better off. 'Minister, what is the total value of budget expenditure?' That's the other big problem we've got. They just keep accruing more and more on the off-budget expenditure side, or the shadow budget. 'How much will Australians give to the government that they can get back under new tax measures?' They can't answer that. 'Does the budget say it will build more or less homes?' We know the answer to that—35,000 fewer. 'What about the direction of rents?' They're going up.

(Time expired)