PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Mr WILLCOX (Dawson) (17:27): I rise today to support the motion moved by the member for Cook. Everyday families in my community are sick and tired of being tricked by a government that cannot explain its own laws. Instead of trying to pass a fair budget for all Australians, the Albanese Labor government did a dirty deal with the Greens behind closed doors to scramble votes in the Senate.
They thought that they could rush the package through without anyone noticing. It all unravelled the moment the coalition started digging into the fine print. While checking the wording of the grandfathering clauses, a hidden trap was uncovered.
The legislation completely failed to account for what happens when a property changes hands due to death or divorce, creating a brutal tax on grief. Labor got caught out trying to slip through what has rightfully been labelled a 'widow's tax'. It's just another Labor untruth.
Mums and dads were told that their existing assets were safe. They were misled. Buried in the details, it has been revealed that, if someone in a relationship dies or a marriage breaks down, the grandfathering protections are stripped away.
The simple act of changing the name on a title deed unleashes a massive tax bill. Think about what that means in reality. If a woman loses her partner, this government's law could unleash a financial penalty during her grief.
The moment the property changes to her name alone, her capital gains tax discount vanishes, her negative gearing benefits disappear, and she is hit with a massive tax bill she never planned for. When the Treasurer was asked multiple times on national television over the weekend how this cruel situation works, he could not explain it. He could not give any single detail on how he would fix it.
He simply shrugged and promised he would try to clean up the mess with more legislation later in the year. If the Treasurer cannot explain how his tax law works before it passes, he has no business forcing it onto the Australian public. The assault on older Australians does not stop there.
This budget directly targets self-funded retirees and pensioners by slashing the private health insurance rebate for everyone over the age of 65. For decades, seniors on fixed incomes have sacrificed to pay for private cover so they could choose their own doctor and stay out of the struggling public health system. By reducing the rebate, this government has slapped older Australians with another premium spike.
It is another blow for pensioners who don't have the ability to earn additional income in this Labor-created cost-of-living crisis. In typical Labor style, when Labor runs out of their money they come after yours. Top economists have already warned us about the severe damage this budget package will cause to the economy.
Former Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has warned that this aggressive tax agenda is actively destroying the confidence of the business sector. Economist Robert Carling blew the whistle on the budget, stating that changing the GST discount on its own is not tax reform and will only penalise everyday people trying to build independent savings. Let's look at who this government is choosing to punish.
It's not the ISIS brides; it's Jane, who owns a bakery. She wakes up at three every morning, works weekends and has spent 20 years pouring her life into a small business. She's always planned to sell that asset one day to fund her retirement.
Under the old rules, she was protected. Under this budget, the government will treat her lifetime of early mornings like a windfall and take a massive bite out of her hard-earned nest egg. I believe that tax reform works best when people who work hard get a hand up.
It does not work when the people who don't want to work get a handout. The coalition believes in lower, simpler and fairer taxes that reward hard work instead of penalising it. Labor needs to throw out these harmful half-baked taxes, abandon its high-tax agenda and return common sense to our laws.