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

I was outlining the current economic conditions in Australia that make it particularly perilous for the government to be taking actions at the moment that will impact on investors. We've got much higher interest rates than when the government first came in; we have inflation continuing to go up and we have employment going down. These are the classic stagflation circumstances. Certainly, this is a point when we should be encouraging business to make big investments, to be moving the economy forward and creating jobs.

Unfortunately, as the Australian Shareholders' Association have asserted in their comments around this bill, this will certainly have a negative impact on retirees and increase the level of uncertainty for investors. The ASA takes issue with schedule 5, legislating the removal of franking credits, as a policy that's too restrictive, with a capacity to operate retrospectively, as far back as December 2016. It also notes that the test is too subjective in nature and would struggle in its application to companies that did not pay regular dividends. Finally, the ASA warned of unintended consequences, particularly concerning companies with large cash reserves that could become takeover targets. Moreover, the 2006 coalition-led Board of Taxation found off-market share buybacks should be retained as they: 'provide a mechanism for companies to generate positive returns through distributing excess cash where investment opportunities are declining'.

Unlike this government, the coalition respects stakeholder opinion; therefore, we cannot support these schedules within the bill. The coalition would support this bill if these offending schedules were discarded from the legislation. We will put forward amendments in relation to this. If the Albanese Labor government do withdraw them, I'm sure they'll find open support from the coalition for this bill.

These schedules are not just substantively objectionable but stand for something far worse: a government that doesn't care about keeping its word. It's not even a year into this term, and the broken promises are piling up. Before the election, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer made a whole series of promises. None of them, unfortunately, have been kept. How many times did the Prime Minister promise to cut electricity bills by $275 during the election?

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