MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Mr VENNING (Grey) (16:05): After this week's antics, it is now pretty obvious what Labor's favourite party trick is. It has to be the old-fashioned backflip. In fact, I could see the Prime Minister and the Treasurer in the 10-metre synchro in LA 2028.
They've flipped so many times on taxes, the Australian public are getting dizzy. The least they can do is bring home some gold for the nation. Just a month after the Treasurer handed down his budget, it is already in tatters.
The Prime Minister told us these tax hikes were so important that he had to break his promise. Now he's poking so many holes in their own failed policies that the budget is starting to look like a piece of Swiss cheese. Australians were clearly told Labor would not touch capital gains, negative gearing, trusts, super or stage 3 tax cuts.
Labor broke those promises. If you could not trust Labor on tax a month ago, you certainly can't trust them now. The fake small business carve-out is a sham.
Nine out of 10 small businesses will get nothing, with Labor now wanting Canberra bureaucrats to decide which businesses are innovative and which ones are not. Does that include a sparkie, or a hairdresser? I don't think so.
It is impressively vague and gives the government dangerous powers to pick winners and punish everyone else. The truth is that small businesses innovate every day just to survive. More complexity does not fix bad policy; an axe does.
Make no mistake, Labor is putting handcuffs on those who aspire to get ahead. They are putting a ceiling on ambition when what Australia really needs is more investment, more productivity and reward for effort. By increasing capital gains tax, Labor will chill investment in startups, with cash likely to funnel into large companies that do not need it.
Investors, savers, tradies, farmers and families trying to build a nest egg or buy a home will all suffer. By taking away earnings, we reduce the amount of liquid capital these people will have available to spend in our economy. It is that simple.
Even the budget papers show that these taxes will suppress housing supply, meaning fewer homes built and higher rents. If that is not enough, the Prime Minister is now bargaining with the Greens to make these toxic taxes even worse. And we all know how deals with the Greens are done—with more tax, more complexity and much more pain during a brutal cost-of-living crisis.
The Greens are now demanding new changes to stop people buying investment properties through self-managed super funds. This is absolutely absurd. This is not fixing a mess; it is adding another tax to everyday Australians who simply want to save, invest and plan for their own future.
These taxes were bad enough, but if Labor does this deal it will be completely disastrous. Labor should stop negotiating with the Greens. These taxes need an axe, not a deal.
If these taxes are bad enough for Labor to run away from, they are bad enough to scrap right now. But there is an alternative. The coalition has a credible plan for real change with no backflips, no flip-flops, no changed positions and no broken promises.
We would never deliver lower taxes for smaller businesses, and we will give Australians automatic tax cuts every year. Our plan is for a freer, fairer and better Australia. We will restore standards of living, protect the Australian way of life and firmly fix migration to the number of homes built, because that is common sense.
The answer is lower interest rates, lower inflation, rising real wages and more opportunity for all, not more tax. We believe in Australia where hard work is rewarded. Australians deserve affordable homes, a stronger economy and a true tax relief, but Labor has failed on every single front.
To borrow a now infamous line from the Prime Minister, 'For the 50th time, stop playing politics and axe these toxic taxes.'