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

Mr WILLCOX (Dawson) (09:41): The Albanese Labor government's budget has gone over like a lead balloon. It's a typical Labor budget. It's big spending and high taxing, and it's full of broken promises.

Actually, there are a litany of broken promises out there, and Australians cannot believe it. Those opposite at the last election in 2025 looked the Australians people in the eye and said, 'There are going to be no new taxes,' but after this budget we can clearly see that is simply not true. Those opposite have effectively been elected on a falsehood.

At least the then leader of the opposition Bill Shorten took it to the election. He had the guts to take these taxes to the electorate and say, 'This is what I'm going to do.' The people voted against it, so Mr Shorten didn't become Prime Minister. What did Prime Minister Albanese do?

He looked people in the eye and said, 'There are going to be no new taxes,' and, when asked about capital gains tax, negative gearing and trusts, he dismissed them and said, 'For the 50th time, no,' but here we are with this budget a year later sneakily bringing these taxes in. What will these taxes mean? They're an assault on aspiration.

They're an assault on the young people, the young people in this great country of ours that are simply trying to get ahead. People in my generation have had these tools—we've had capital gains tax, we've had negative gearing, we've had trusts—that we can use to help us create some wealth, but that's being taken away from our young people. It's not just the young people it's being taken away from; it's being taken away from anybody who's had their circumstances changed.

For example, if someone was unfortunate enough to get divorced—they were living in a house together, and they unfortunately get divorced—then that person needs to buy another house. They move out, and they need to buy another house. They might not have the money for a deposit for that house.

What do they do? The same as what young people do. They try to invest their money.

They work hard. They invest their money in shares, EFTs or bitcoin, chasing a bigger return so they can then have that deposit so they can afford to buy a house. It's the Australian dream to own a house.

What's going to happen now? They're going to be taxed more, so that aspiration of trying to get that Australian dream of owning the house under this Albanese Labor government is being moved further and further away. It is just simply not fair.

And there's negative gearing, the other broken promise—well, it's not the other; there seem to be broken promises after broken promises. What will the negative gearing changes mean? For an investor who's going to buy a home that he could rent out, what happens when he can't have this as a tax deduction, when his numbers don't work?

He has to put the rent up. For people who are trying to get into a home, more of their disposable income is used up when the rent goes up. So they then haven't got the money to buy or have the deposit to buy a house.

We've all been told that these new taxes are fair and that they're what we need for more houses. But the budget papers themselves show that there are going to be 35,000 fewer homes. So how do you think that's going to work?

It's making it harder and harder for all Australians. But I think we need to get to the crux of it. This isn't about homeownership.

This is about Labor control. Labor don't want people to be aspirational, to own their own homes, to independently think. They want people who have spare money to invest in bigger corporations, larger businesses, that they can then unionise, because that's how they get their money.

It's simply not fair. With the $77 million extra in tax, this is the highest taxing budget in history. It's certainly not the gold medal that I'd want to aspire to.

As I said before, Prime Minister Albanese didn't have the guts to take these proposals to the election. This won't hurt the big end of town as much as it will hurt the little guys. Now, I know those opposite are saying, 'Oh, you're only looking after your big businesses.' That's absolutely ridiculous, because the bigger end of town will already have money for a deposit or they will have the money, potentially, to pay cash for a house.

It's going to affect the everyday battlers, and that is the bad thing about this budget. Flying down here, I was talking to a guy on the plane sitting next to me. He said: 'Andrew, I hope you're going down to try to breathe some common sense into the Labor government about this budget.

Mate, I'm a battler. I've got a small business; I employ three guys. We do shutdowns.

I'm travelling away from my family now to do this. I've bought a house and I've got a child. At some point, if I can pay enough off the house and eventually own it, I might be able to give that house to my child just to help them out.' But, with all the changes now, he's saying, 'Why bother?' And that is the really big issue that I have with this budget.

When someone wants to work hard in this country, they deserve a fair go. And that ladder is being pulled up from them. The ladder of aspiration is being taken away by this Albanese Labor government, and I really believe that that's sad.

This isn't the Australia that we aspire to. We want a better Australia. We want people to be able to afford their own homes.

This budget is dissolving faster than sugar in the North Queensland wet season. The Albanese Labor government is trying to promote this budget as a sweet deal, but beneath the sugar coating is a bitter recipe of broken promises and tax grabs. It leaves the public with a sour taste in their mouths; frankly, it is a budget that the Australian people are finding hard to swallow.

Break this budget down into its ingredients, and the bitter truth is laid bare. Hidden in the fine print of this budget is a death tax, called an inheritance tax. Let's be honest—the truth on the other side is in very short supply.

Those opposite are trying to dress this budget up as something that is palatable. You can't put lipstick on a pig, because if you do it's still a pig. This is certainly a swine of a budget, and those opposite are telling porkies.

The Treasurer serves up tales of relief while the family budget bleeds. The government paints a picture of prosperity while the people are working harder for less. It's a banquet of deception where every course is seasoned with a new tall tale, and the Australian people are sick of being force fed this steady diet of fabrications.

The cold, hard truth is that the cost of everyday life is pricing ordinary Australians out of their own future. We all know that, when Labor run out of money, they come after yours. No-one voted for these new taxes.

These taxes weren't taken to the Australian people. The Prime Minister promised more than 50 times before the last election that he would not introduce them. But, as we know, his word is a bond that constantly defaults.

In an act of complete bad faith and disregard for the Australian people, he turned around and broke every single one of those commitments. These new taxes are not designed to grow the economy. They are designed to manage its decline.

Like I said before, there's a death tax, a tax on family savings, a tax on renters, first home buyers and young Australians just trying to get ahead and a tax on small business, startups and entrepreneurs. The member for Parramatta is one of those opposite, but he's a businessperson, so he even spoke about how bad this budget was. This budget is full of broken promises, and it's a budget that breaks the Australian dream.

It's an assault on aspiration. Like I said before, it pulls up the ladder of opportunity. Labor's budget does not create intergenerational fairness.

It is intergenerational fraud. This government's treasurer is the inflationary arsonist who pretends to be a firefighter. This is now the highest-taxing government in Australian history.

The budget locks in $77 billion of higher taxes, and the Prime Minister has now confirmed $273 billion in taxes that we did not vote for, and that is over the next nine years. Debt is heading towards $1.25 trillion. The interest bill is $80,000 a minute.

Today's debt is tomorrow's taxes, and it will be the next generation that will be handed the bill. The coalition opposes schedules 1 and 2, but we will support schedules 3 and 4. We are the party of lower taxes.

Not only is this budget built on broken promises, higher taxes and lower living standards, but it's also building fewer homes. The government's own budget papers say that 35,000 fewer homes will be built as a direct consequence of their new taxes. This is not the coalition's number.

This is the government's own numbers. When you tax something, you get less of it. This is an obvious economic concept to all other than those opposite.

The more you tax housing investment, the less housing investment you get. This is a plain and simple fact. This Labor government's budget narrative is built around intergenerational fairness, but strip away the rhetoric and the budget papers confirm that the lower supply, combined with the government's own overshoot of immigration to the tune of 90,000, means higher demand, lower supply and higher prices.

When you increase the cost of investment to investors, guess what? These investors aren't a charity. They will pass the cost of those onto the renters, and this will make it harder for people to save for a deposit.

This is just common sense. The government's own budget papers admit their tax changes will increase rents. Labor are taking from young Australians at every stage of their journey, not just at the point of the purchase.

I want to talk about Jen and Mike from my electorate. They are the generation that this budget was supposed to champion. Instead, they are the casualties.

After a decade of savings, they finally built their new home in 2021. They thought they'd achieved the Australian dream, but now they are trapped. They've paid nearly $2,000 extra every month in additional interest alone since this Labor government was elected.

That is money being forcibly extracted from their family budget. It has resulted in their health insurance being cancelled. They have to make a choice between paying their electricity bill or buying groceries.

To the total shame of this government, it's their son's swimming lessons that have had to be cancelled. Is this the Australia we want for our future generations? Our young people to be struggling just to get by?

Jen and Mike are being penalised for the crime of hard work. They were promised a fair go; instead, they've been stripped of all their savings and are at risk of having to sell the house they've spent a decade saving for. Shame, shame, shame on those opposite!

This government claims to stand for workers, yet they have turned Jen and Mike into victims of their own success. Because Jen and Mike earn slightly more than the minimum wage, there was no pay rise for them yesterday. They have to watch real wages fall while they work harder to take home less.

Jen and Mike said there is nothing in the budget for them, and they are right. They are the young, hardworking Australians this government should be rewarding. They are the hardworking young Australians that the coalition will be there to support.