David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Treasurer's so-called national conversation on the nation's finances will end with this sentence: 'Here are your new taxes.' That's going to happen in the budget in May. It's very clear. It will happen not because the government has a problem with revenue but because it has a problem with spending. The October budget shows that income tax revenue will go up by $40 billion a year over the forward estimates, but just one item in the budget, social security and welfare, goes up by $42 billion. That's more than the entire additional revenue from income tax consumed by just one item in the budget. It is a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Going to tax is a reflexive and, frankly, vacuous approach to this problem. The problem is not a revenue one.

We should be reducing taxes, not increasing them. Back in 2016, the coalition government abolished capital gains tax for investments in early-stage companies. That's been very effective in stimulating investment in those early-stage tech companies in Australia, creating thousands of jobs in the process. There are many opportunities to further reduce capital gains tax, which can be done at a modest cost to the budget. It can have a very positive impact on investment in the Australian economy. As a country, we should be reducing tax to stimulate investment, not increasing tax to suppress investment.

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