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) (13:03): Thank you, Minister, for that. We do appreciate the briefings. I always took what happens in there to be confidential, but, given that you're wanting to tell everyone what questions I didn't ask— Senator Gallagher: I didn't mean to breach any confidentiality.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: For people's understanding, there are a whole range of bills, and it's fairly rapid fire; it's not like you get a chance to go through every single one of your amendments or concerns about bills. It's a good thing that the government does, but it is in no way an opportunity to talk at length about suggested amendments. As to the GST bills, there was also a three-month Senate inquiry into those changes through a select committee.

I think that's in stark contrast to what senators are having to deal with when it comes to these changes, which was an almost farcical, compressed Senate inquiry. A huge number of concerns were raised, and the government palmed most of them off, saying, 'Sure, we'll deal with them down the track.' A lot of stakeholders are rightly concerned. As someone who actually agrees with the intent of these bills, my argument has been that if it's about closing loopholes, let's do it properly.

I don't understand why there is such an urgent rush for changes that only come into effect down the track. Surely, we should just get this right. I think the Greens had an opportunity to do exactly that—to make sure that we are closing the loopholes and that we are creating a tax system that rewards hard work and taxes sweat less than it taxes equity.

I appreciate the minister's commitment on this, but some of it's hard to cop when you're really scrambling to get stuff drafted—we've talked about drafting resources so many times as a crossbench. We agree with the intent of the bill. We're putting forward amendments in good faith, and then we're somehow accused of not engaging.