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

Senator DAVID POCOCK (Australian Capital Territory—Independent ACT Whip) (12:56): I seek leave to withdraw amendments to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Bill 2026, standing in my name, on sheets 3878 and 3898. Leave granted. I withdraw these amendments.

I have been provided with assurances from the government in this chamber earlier, including by Minister Gallagher, that they will address the issues I've raised regarding the need to preserve grandfathered CGT and negative gearing concessions in the case of death or divorce and will give effect to this in the next tranche of legislation. I don't think this is ideal.

This should have been sorted out in this primary legislation. The Senate should have had more time to actually look at these issues that we are identifying. However, I'm prepared to take the government's commitment in good faith and therefore will no longer proceed with the amendments, which will be a couple of votes less in the guillotine.

I do want to say, though, as a crossbencher, that the government's language is a little bit disappointing. They're saying that this is something that they knew about all along and were going to address, and yet, just this morning, we had ministers on the radio saying that it wasn't an issue and it was just how the system worked and there was nothing to see here.

I just want to note as a crossbencher that, when you engage in good faith with amendments, it seems like the Labor government has this default position on private senators' bills on amendments. Unless they absolutely have to, they don't really want to entertain any, and I think we could have far more constructive politics. But these amendments do go to fairness and also ensure that this legislation doesn't disadvantage predominantly women, who, as I said yesterday, statistically outlive us men and have less superannuation savings.

Clearly, if you look at the case of death or divorce, this is something that we need to be taking into account. I thank the government for its good faith commitment and the Treasurer's office and his staff who have worked on this. I look forward to seeing the government deliver it in the next tranche of legislation.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR ( Senator Sterle ): Thank you, Senator Pocock. The Senate notes that you've withdrawn your amendments.