Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the excellent contribution from the member for Forde, my electorate neighbour. I think some insights there are certainly things the government should be listening to, particularly given the member's extensive experience in the financial and banking sector. I think he is hitting the nail on the head on a number of fronts, and I'm going to cover off on many of the same themes in my remarks over the next little while.

This omnibus Treasury bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (2023 Measures No. 1) Bill 2023, combines reasonable measures that the coalition supports with quite controversial measures which the coalition absolutely do not support. Unfortunately, the Labor government is sacrificing good policy in favour of ideological recklessness. We support schedules 1 through 3. They progress reasonable things and we cannot object to those, despite several flaws. It is important to note that the Australian accounting academics, the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors and the Institute of Public Accountants, took issue with a number of provisions within schedule 2. The coalition are willing to work with the government to advance useful policy in these areas, and to outline some of these areas of concern and to work through them.

But, unfortunately, the bill does not end there. It goes to include schedules 4 and 5, which we cannot support. These schedules attack franking credits—a policy that no stakeholder that I could find seems to support. It's a policy that was largely taken to the 2019 election by the now government, the then opposition, and was roundly rejected by the voters. Unfortunately, the government wasn't honest enough at the last election to say that they were going to be taking a similar approach when in government, and, unfortunately, we're now seeing this brought in quite stealthily through the first Treasury amendment bill of this year.

The Australian Shareholders Association asserts that the amendments will have a negative impact on retirees. I certainly agree with that assessment. The association also notes that the changes are retrospective in nature and likely to create uncertainty amongst investors. If there's one thing we don't need in this country at this point in time, it's uncertainty for investors. We saw the latest national accounts come out last week—

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