Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Bill 2026, Income Tax Rates Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Bill 2026
Senator COLBECK (Tasmania) (18:44): I rise to make my contribution to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Bill 2026 and the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Bill 2026. I have to say that the period since the budget has been one of complete shambles for this government as they have scrambled to manage the fallout from the terrible reaction to their budget and then, of course, tried to design, on the run and at the direction of the Greens, a solution to some of the problems that they created by breaching faith with the Australian people.
For me, this is one of the saddest things about where we find ourselves at this point in time during the debate, because, as members of parliament, one of the things that is most important to us is the value of our word. When we go out and talk to the Australian people and say, 'This is what we intend to do if we are elected,' then that is the promise, that is the contract that we as members of parliament have with the Australian people when we put our platform on the table and ask for their vote.
That is the deal. When we breach that contract in such an egregious way as this government has done with this budget it undermines this whole profession, this whole vocation that we participate in as members of parliament. It not only diminishes us all but, as we have seen from the public reaction, it has had a significant impact on the capacity of the Australian community to believe whatever it is that the government might say.
The government promised before the election that there would be no changes to capital gains tax. They promised before the election that there would be no changes to negative gearing. In the budget they broke that promise, and their rationale—'we changed our mind'.
What an extraordinary breach of faith, and on what basis? Given that breach of faith, breach of contract with the Australian people, what confidence can the Australian people have in anything this government say in the future, even anything they say in defence of their current policy position? We know, because we see it every day, that it's all about the politics.
It's not about actually resolving the issues that the Australian people need fixing; it's about the ideology and the politics. We see it time and time again, where the political deal is the thing that is most important, and the impact on the Australian people is something completely secondary. I'd hate to see this government trying to work through a game of join the dots, because, when you look at the impact that the changes that they've made to these tax measures in the budget are going to have along with a whole range of other things that they've done through other legislative change, and you actually put all of the pieces together and start connecting the dots, you see why we're getting the outcomes that we are in the Australian economy.
Members on the other side come into this place, parrot the talking points and talk about the aspiration to build 1.2 million homes over the coming five years. People can't live in an aspiration. The fact is this government are building 170,000 houses a year, which is way behind their aspiration, and, worse, it's 30,000 houses a year fewer than were being built when the coalition was in government.
They talk about this huge amount of money, this huge investment that they're making in housing around the country. Only the Labor Party could spend $47 billion on housing and build fewer houses. I mean, seriously, $47 billion a year or more on housing and they are building 30,000 houses a year fewer than were being built when the coalition was last in government.
Worse, their own budget papers say there will be 35,000 houses fewer over the forward estimates than the already paltry 170,000 a year they're building at the moment, and that's because of all of the policies that they've put into place, their loss of control of inflation, their massive government spending which is fuelling inflation and their unwillingness or their incapacity to acknowledge that that's what they're doing.
Yet they come in here and they parrot the talking points so many times it's as though they themselves believe them. It doesn't matter how many times you repeat something that's not true; it doesn't make it true. This budget will not make it easier for young Australians to get into housing.
In fact, the punitive measures in this budget will make it harder for young Australians to save for their housing deposit, so it will make it harder for them to get into housing. The increased tax on the investment measures where young people are now investing—if they're just putting money in the bank and relying on interest, their money is going backwards against the market, so what are they doing?
They're using investment mechanisms like ETFs and the stock market, and what has the government done as part of this process? They've increased the tax on those returns and made it harder for young Australians to save that first deposit for their new home, and because the country is building 30,000 fewer homes a year under the economic settings of this government there's less stock in the market; therefore, it's harder to buy a home.
The government needs to connect the dots, but more importantly it needs to be honest and upfront with the Australian people, which is what it has failed to do and is why the Australian people are increasingly not believing what this government says. You can't believe them when they promise that they're not going to increase capital gains tax. You couldn't believe them when they said they weren't going to increase negative gearing—just like you couldn't believe them at the 2022 election, when they said they wouldn't change the tax on superannuation, and then they went and did it.
And when they stitched up their dirty deal with the Greens this week they changed the taxation on superannuation again when they promised they wouldn't do it, so they've broken that promise twice. They broke the promise after the 2022 election; they broke the promise again after the 2025 election. And now what are they doing?
They're attacking the capacity of self-managed super funds to invest in housing because that's what the Greens want. What an absurd situation. You have the Greens dictating economic policy to the Labor Party.
I never thought I'd see that happen, but that shows that the government is only about the politics of the deal rather than the impact on the Australian people, and it's the Australian people that are going to pay for this. These budget measures are slated to raise an extra $77 billion, yet the talking points tell us they're reducing tax and giving everyone a tax cut.
No, they're not. They're taking an extra $77 billion out of the Australian economy by taxing people's investments. That's what they're doing, because Labor think they know how to spend your money better than you do.
That's the fundamental deal, and I've seen that so many times over my time in politics at a state and a federal level. The Labor Party thinks they know how to spend and invest your money better than you do, so they need to take more of it. As has been said, I think, quite a number of times in this debate, when they run out of your money, they come to get more.
In this budget that is to the tune of $77 billion more, and they have the nerve to come into this place and tell us that they're giving everybody a tax cut. On what planet does raising an extra $77 billion in tax by taxing people's investments equate to a reduction in tax? As we've seen with a range of other tax measures that Labor has put into place over a period of time, you don't raise taxes on something so that you can get more of it.
We saw it with alcohol between 2007 and 2013. We've seen it with cigarettes; that's turned into a complete basket case, a loss of control of the tobacco market in this country and a complete and utter bonanza for organised crime. That's how blind the Labor Party are when it comes to managing tax policy in this country.
They say, and they go out and they promise to young people, that this tax package is about intergenerational equity. They say, 'This is about helping you get into a new home.' You cannot believe any of those things, because it does none of those things. All of the things that Labor's talking points say they are trying to do with this tax package—all the things they are looking to do and aspire to do—are things it does not do.
It doesn't make it easier for a young Australian to get a home. It doesn't make it easier to save for a home. We know that the additional tax on young Australians' savings through these measures, through their investments, will make it more difficult for them to save that first home deposit, because it's taxing the measures that everyone else has had in the past at a higher rate than it did previously.
There's a cameo in their budget of a young person who's earning $35,000 a year through investments, who would pay $1,400 tax under the old system and ends up paying $1,600 more with the 30 per cent tax rate in the new system. That's the government's own cameo in their own budget papers, yet they have the nerve to come into this place and tell us that it's about supporting young people to get into the housing market, when they're building 30,000 fewer houses per year than what was happening before 2022.
There are fewer houses in the market, and they're actually making it harder for young Australians to save the deposit for that first home that is more scarce because we're building less housing. It's no wonder Australians are coming to the conclusion that they can't believe a thing this government tells them, when it's broken promise after broken promise after broken promise after broken promise.
There was the famous $275 reduction in electricity prices that never manifested. They talked about a lower cost of living. They talked about cheaper housing prices.
They promised they'd make no changes to superannuation and broke that promise. They promised they wouldn't change the capital gains tax system and broke that promise. They promised they wouldn't change negative gearing and broke that promise.
Then they broke the superannuation promise again in their stinking deal with the Greens. Why would you believe anything that the Labor Party told you? They'll trot the talking points out.
That's what they do. They're very good at that, but you can't believe a word they say, because they have no respect for the Australian community. They have no respect for this parliament.
They're here to do a deal, a political deal, rather than to actually get the detail of how this system is going to work, as we've seen through questions in question time and through the inquiry. They really shouldn't be trying to force this through in the way that they are—but, of course, Labor's only about the deal, not about the Australian people. (Time expired)