QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS
Senator COLBECK (Tasmania) (15:19): Let's bring this debate back to what it's about. This motion is about Labor's broken promises to the Australian people in relation to their tax policies at the last election. Labor went to the last election promising that they would not change the tax on capital gains.
They went to the last election promising that they would not change the tax on superannuation. They went to the election promising they would not change the tax on other elements of the economy. Then they came in here and did exactly that in this budget.
How can any Australian believe anything that this government says in response? How can the Australian people take anything that the Labor Party says at face value anymore? We saw that in question time again today.
We saw Labor senators come in here in this debate and try and portray it as being about something else. This debate is about the tax treatment of the assets of the Australian people—their super and other assets that they own—which the government promised they would not change. But they are now changing the tax treatment through a dirty deal with the Australian Greens.
That's what's happening here. We have Labor senators coming in and trying to deflect. They are going personal against members of the opposition.
What this is genuinely about is Labor's word and what it's worth. This government has, following the 2022 election and the 2025 election, broken its promises to the Australian people so many times. The broken promise with respect to superannuation is not their first broken promise on superannuation.
At the 2022 election, they promised they would not change the tax treatment of superannuation. They then did that, again with the support of the Greens. So they're breaking that promise for a second time today because they made the same promise again at the 2025 election.
You cannot believe a single word that this government says, including in question time, when it's trying to push back on questions from the opposition on concerns raised by our constituents legitimately. They have lost the value of their word. The Prime Minister went to the 2022 election and the 2025 election saying, 'My word is my bond.' Those were his words.
What do those words mean now? As a member of parliament, your word is one of the more paramount things that you have. When you sacrifice that—through the promises that this government has broken—what do you have left?
You have absolutely nothing left. These budget measures are a betrayal of the Australian people and the promises that this government made to the Australian people at the last election. The Australian people know it.
The word of the Labor Party and of this government now has zero value in the Australian community, and the Labor Party deserve every element of that. Question agreed to.