George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Taxable incomes. He says 'taxable incomes'. What does he want to be on—the Labor Party's imaginary income thresholds? The member who is interjecting needs to think long and hard about the 20,000 Tasmanians that are going to be affected, and he should be talking to them. The victims of this retiree tax proposed by Labor will be pensioners, part-pensioners and self-funded retirees. They have done the right thing their whole life. They've worked hard, scrimped and saved to support themselves in retirement. They've done this nation a great service by removing some of the burden on the government and on the taxpayer. They've worked hard—they've built this country—and Labor wants to reward them by stealing their hard-earned money.

I met with one of the potential victims of Labor's retiree tax in my electorate earlier this year. Jolien is 88 years old. He and his wife, Enid, are self-funded retirees. They've worked hard their entire lives and paid all their taxes—a lot of tax. They've never relied on any support from the government. In the process, they saved for their own retirement. Saving means sacrificing. Instead of spending money having a good time, going on holidays or going out every night, Jolien and Enid chose to save money so they could support themselves in their later years. That hard work and saving enabled them to do just that. They're self-funded retirees who do not receive any pension from the government.

If you believe Labor's spin about 'typically wealthy retirees', you probably think that they're living the high life, dining on caviar and champagne every night. But Jolien told me, 'Our gross income, between the two of us, is less than the current average weekly wage'—less than the current average weekly wage. He said that, under the planned retiree tax by the Labor Party, their income would be reduced by more than $10,000 a year. He said, 'On part of my personal income, it will be 64½c in the dollar on the excess imputation credits.' Corporate fat cats and bank CEOs—banks themselves don't pay 64½c in the dollar on any part of their tax. Jolien is just one of the many retirees in my electorate who have voiced their concerns about their financial future under a Shorten Labor government. They can't believe that the lifestyle for which they have worked and saved, scrimped, for decades will be pulled out from under them with the stroke of a pen.

If we really want to support retiree incomes in Australia the most important thing we can do is to stop the shifty Leader of the Opposition from ever becoming Prime Minister. We can legislate measures like we're doing in this bill today, but all that and more will be undermined if Labor's retiree tax, their attack on seniors in this country, means that investment dividends are no longer protected from double taxation. It is hard to believe that in September 2017 the Leader of the Opposition stood up in Townsville and said:

I think Australians pay enough tax at the moment. I don't believe that another tax is going to be what Australians need or want at this stage.

It is very hard to believe that. It's very hard to believe that he said it with a straight face, because Labor is now promising to tax everything that moves and impose levies on anything that doesn't.

As well as stealing money off more than one million individuals with their retiree tax, they will also hit around 40 per cent of self-managed super funds and retirement savings that are held in about 3½ million super fund accounts. They did, however, very conveniently allow hundreds of millions of dollars in franking credits to be refunded to tax-exempt organisations, also known as trade unions, that donate to the Labor Party.

The truth is that no amount of support for retirement incomes will make up for what would lie ahead in the unfortunate circumstances of having a Shorten Labor government. They would not only impose a retiree tax; they would hit them with a housing tax, with a carbon tax, with higher electricity bills and even, as the unions want, with a death tax. They are proposing to raise more money from new taxes—more money than the actual GDP of New Zealand—because they would have to pay for their waste, for their profligate spending and for their inability to run a budget. It's like the Labor Party has employed two innovation professionals: one to dream up ways of how to throw around money and win votes, and the other as some kind of grim reaper tax officer dreaming up ways to hurt people and searching for new ways to hurt them even more. This time around it's going to be older Australians. How disgusting. How disgusting to attack people in our society who have worked hard to build up this country and some of the most vulnerable in our society.

It is no wonder there was white-hot anger in Townsville recently at the House economics committee, which was conducting a public hearing for their inquiry into the implication of removing refundable franking credits. There was quite a turnout for that meeting. Many of them drove in the rain as the floods started. They drove through the rain to get to that meeting. They wanted to have their voices heard. And didn't Labor hate it that self-funded retirees and pensioners actually had their voices heard through that platform? They tried to discredit that inquiry to sweep the problems under the carpet.

They have the audacity to come in here and tell those self-funded retirees and pensioners to just not vote for them. Actually, that's the best thing I've heard. I concur with that advice from the Labor Party. The best advice for seniors right now is to not vote for the Labor Party, because they are going to come after you. Regardless of the changes we make through this bill to support the incomes of Australians in retirement, it will all come to nought if a Shorten Labor government comes to power.

Pensioners and retirees will be taxed. Seniors will be far worse off under a Labor government. It will be a case of three steps forward under this bill, and a Bondi tram one mile back. There's one thing that we've learnt about Labor: when they run out of their own money, they come after yours, they come after mine, they come after everyone's. If you're a senior, there's one thing as sure as night follows day, and day follows night: they're coming after your hard-earned. It's absolutely disgusting that they would try to rip off and steal the hard-earned of our senior Australians—people who built this country, people who are some of the most vulnerable, people who are on fixed incomes, people who are on low incomes.

I say to the Labor Party: think again, and if you don't think again you are going to be punished at the ballot box. Those 20,000 Tasmanians who receive these funds—

Opposition members interjecting—

are going to come for you, mate; they're going to come for you. They're going to come for every single one of these Labor people. They're so smug, walking around like they've won this already. Well, I've got news for them, and so have the seniors around this country: they're going to punish Labor at the ballot box for disgracing themselves with this policy.

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