Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Before I move to that critical matter, I've just a couple of brief words about my neighbour the member for Whitlam. We knew each other from before politics. We knew Julia as well before politics. Little did we know we were going to become neighbouring seats, but it has been a very civilised neighbouring relationship for the most part. I've enjoyed working with him on really critical issues across the region, including the 2019-20 bushfires, of course, and we share a passion, which might surprise some. That's a passion for the survival and the prosperity of the steelworks in the Illawarra and Port Kembla, because it was the first place I worked coming out of university and I think it's an incredibly important contributor to the region. Good on the member for Whitlam for the role he's played in the success of that important business, and thank you for your public service.

Three years ago—2022—seems like a long time ago now. It was the year Queen Elizabeth died and we were seeing COVID going backwards, which was a good thing, of course. It was the first year we saw large language models, with the emergence of OpenAI. It was on 2 May 2022 that I think a lot of Australians took notice of what the then Leader of the Opposition said, which was that life would be cheaper under Labor. That was almost three years ago; the anniversary is coming up. Labor and the Prime Minister at the time talked a very big game about lower electricity prices, cheaper mortgages et cetera. The sad reality, though, is that Australians have seen the exact opposite over the course of the last almost three years. Nothing is getting easier. Australians are paying more for their mortgages. Australians have paid $50,000 in after-tax income in additional costs on a typical mortgage since Labor came to power.

I was talking to one of my constituents the other day. Before Labor came to power, their mortgage repayments were $1,500 a week. Now, they're $4,000 a week. That's $30,000 a year in after-tax income that this small-business person has had to find. He and his wife run a small business in my electorate. They work incredibly hard. They're working extra hours to get by and to pay that mortgage. The stress on them is typical of the stress we're seeing on Australians right across this great country as they pay more for their energy. This guy makes pizzas and he uses a lot of gas. The price of gas has gone up by 34 per cent. Food is up 12 per cent. Rent is up 17 per cent. We know for a working family the cost of living is approaching an increase of 20 per cent, and incomes have not kept up with that. This is why we have seen the biggest hit to Australia's standard of living in our history. It's the biggest hit in our history, worse than for any of our peer countries. It's seen a bigger reduction than in any of our peer countries.

We also know that this government's own plan doesn't get us back to the standard of living Australians had in 2022, three years ago, until 2030. Right at the heart of this is Labor crowding out the private sector. We've seen record levels of insolvencies, but we are also seen record levels of government spending, over $350 billion of extra spending from Labor. And, yes, we opposed in this parliament over $100 billion for programs that have delivered nothing. They're not delivering the manufacturing we want to see and not delivering the houses we want to see.

If you're going to spend that kind of money then you have to find that kind of money. The way they are doing it, as we all know all too well, is by taxing Australians more. Australians are paying the highest level of personal income tax ever. The increase for Australians has been over 20 per cent since Labor came to power. Included in that is a tax grab from this Treasurer and this Prime Minister which they promised not to do. They promised not to touch franking credits. Well, they are going after franking credits. There is no doubt about that. They promised not to touch superannuation taxes. They are coming after that. We see that legislation coming through the parliament at the moment, and I will come back to that in a moment. They promised not to change negative gearing, but we know the Treasurer was working on a secret plan to come after negative gearing. Just today, the Prime Minister refused to rule out coming after negative gearing. He has been given so many opportunities. He laughs and carries on every time he is asked the question and never rules it out. He never has and I don't think he ever will, because we know that's exactly what he wants to do.

Australians know that on tax, Labor's word means absolutely nothing. In fact, we have seen new research just in the last little while from the Financial Services Council saying a staggering 73 per cent of Australians expect that Labor will make further changes to superannuation if they are re-elected—an extraordinary number. That is a complete loss of faith and trust in the stability of superannuation, which is so crucial to Australians' retirement. It's not hard to see why there's this lack of trust, because, as I said a moment ago, right now we've got new superannuation taxes going through this parliament. The Treasurer made a very ham-fisted effort today to explain why he was doing something that he promised he wouldn't do. They promised that they wouldn't come after superannuation. We know now that, according to Treasury's own analysis, a 20-year-old who earns an average wage throughout their life will have a superannuation balance higher than $3 million in their early 60s, and they will be hit by this new tax. Analysis of the ATO and census data reveals that that means that more than two million Australians under the age of 25 today will be hit by this additional tax to pay for Labor's addiction to spending.

But, worse still, part of this package is going after unrealised capital gains. Unrealised capital gains are unrealised. And, if you have to pay a tax, you have to pay it in cash, so you have to realise it. We know that the small-business people and farmers who have put land in their self-managed super funds will have to find a way to pay that tax when land is not going to give them liquidity they can draw on easily. So what's the answer? They're going to have to sell. They have to realise the unrealised capital gain. This is not rocket science, and it's why we haven't seen this kind of impost in the past. It's why we haven't seen this in countries across the world. But, in Australia, we've got a Treasurer who thinks this is a good idea.

You've got to remember that this was the brainchild of a Treasurer who has never worked in the private sector, unless you count 'six long months as Queensland general manager of a public relations firm'—six long months. That's a direct quote from the Treasurer's book Glory Daze, where he says how much he hated his six long months in the private sector, and he went straight back to what he's much happier with, which is lots of government. I'll save everybody the pain of reading Glory Daze,and I'll say this: there aren't many glorious days ahead of this lot on the other side of the parliament. I cannot recommend this book. I much preferred the member for Parramatta in the Quarterly Essay, where he advocated strongly for nuclear power. At least he's an economist, unlike the Treasurer.

But let's be honest about this tax. Labor's super tax is nothing more than an unindexed wealth tax. That will mean even fewer Australians will trust this government, this Labor Party, when it comes to the superannuation that they put away, hoping that it will be there for their retirement—that they think is their money, but that, sadly, this Treasurer and this government have decided is their own money.

There is a better way: getting this country back on track by beating inflation and boosting growth; through cheaper energy with a better mix of energy sources; through affordable homes, by breaking those infrastructure bottlenecks that we know are preventing the supply of extra homes in this country; by balancing immigration with the supply of housing; and by ensuring this country is getting back on track.

See this speech in context