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

I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2023 Measures No. 1) Bill 2023. Unfortunately, this bill does what now seems to be common practice for this government—that is, the government uses these omnibus Treasury bills to tie up reasonable measures that the coalition will support, do support, with other controversial measures that we most certainly do not. This is what this government has done with this bill. It's done it with a number of bills, and we've seen some terrible outcomes from that approach. But it is the approach the government seems to want to take, so, at the outset, it's worthwhile laying out the different parts of this bill to see how the government has mixed and matched, as it typically does.

Schedule 1 amends the Corporations Act to close a loophole in the post royal commission requirement for financial advisers to register with ASIC's Financial Advisers Register. The amendments close a loophole to minimise the risk of inadvertent breaches of the law when offence provisions on providing unregistered financial advice commence. The amendments allow ASIC to streamline applications where a provider is authorised by more than one licensee to provide financial advice.

Schedule 2 gives the Australian Accounting Standards Board, the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board and the Financial Reporting Council the power to develop climate and sustainable standards. And schedule 3 implements five recommendations from the 2020 Tax Practitioners Board review. All of those are schedules that we support. We think they're reasonable things to be progressing. As I say, there's no reason to object to any of them.

But schedules 4 and 5 make two sneaky changes to the franking credits regime. Schedule 4 amends the Income Tax Assessment Act to limit the ability of the listed companies to offer franking credits in off-market share buybacks. And schedule 5 amends the Income Tax Assessment Act to limit the ability of the listed companies to offer franking credits on capital raisings. This is despite the fact that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer both ruled out changes to franking credits before the election. They both ruled out changes to franking credits before the election, and they've snuck those two schedules into this Treasury laws amendment bill. Make no mistake, this is another broken promise from the Albanese government. The coalition will move amendments to strike out these broken promises from the bill. But, if the government doesn't accept the amendments, we won't be supporting this bill because it is just another broken promise.

Not even a year into this government and the broken promises are piling up. Before the election, the Prime Minister and Treasurer made a whole series of these promises. Remember the promise to cut electricity bills by $275? Broken. Remember the promise of cheaper mortgages? Broken. Remember the promise of lower inflation, lower cost of living? Broken. And now the promise of no changes to super. Broken. The promise of higher real wages. Broken. One after another, their core election commitments are falling to pieces. By the time we get to the next election, the one thing the Australian people will know is that you cannot trust this Prime Minister and you cannot trust this government.

In a cost-of-living crisis, Labor's priorities seem to be coming after Australians' money. We know the reality with Labor is that, when it runs out of its money, it comes after Australians' money. Both the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, and I will document this a little more in a moment, said that they wouldn't touch franking credits. Yet, six months in, here we are. A little while back, two tax grabs on unsuspecting Australian shareholders were introduced into the House.

It is worth going through the commitments that this government made before the election. On 1 January 2021, the West Australian reported that the Prime Minister said, 'We will not be taking any changes to franking credits to the next election.' Well, he was right about that. They didn't take them to the election; he just broke his election promise after the election. That seems to be the format for this government. On 30 March, a couple of months later, the Prime Minister on ABC Radio said, 'We won't have any changes to the franking credits regime which is there.' As far as this government is concerned, a promise is worth nothing. The Prime Minister said his word is his bond. Well, that bond is not worth much to the Australian people.

It goes on. I'm only getting started. On 15 December 2021, the Prime Minister told Tasmania Talksperhaps when he goes to Tasmania he just ignores what he says, but this is what he said—'We've made it clear that on areas like franking credits and negative gearing, we won't be taking those policies to the next election.' Well, here it is in front of the House today. That's franking credits. Negative gearing is on the way, no doubt. It was part of the Treasurer's hit list he put out last week of all the taxes he wants to impose on Australians. There's a long queue of ministers asking for money. That's the truth. There's a long queue of ministers all asking for money, and he's got to feed them what they want. But the Australian taxpayers always pay.

Let's keep going. We're only up to December 2021. We've got a bit of time to go yet! On 4 March, the Prime Minister said in relation to franking credits, and this one was short, simple and clear: 'We're not touching them.' Obviously there is a sunset date on these promises. It must be about a year, and then he decides he doesn't have to take notice of them at all.

A little earlier, on 17 January 2022, the Treasurer, in this case, said, 'We won't be doing franking credits.' I'm sure he's going to get into the semantics of 'doing', but I would interpret that as: they're not going to make any changes to franking credits. I suspect the vast majority of Australians would interpret it the same way. Having said 'We won't be doing franking credits', he then said, 'I couldn't be clearer than that.' So, time after time, we saw the Prime Minister and the Treasurer make a commitment to the Australian people, a commitment which they intend to break in the legislation in front of use here today.

These two measures, which limit the ability for companies to offer franking credits to shareholders, are estimated to raise at least $600 million over the next five years. That means $600 million that Australians are paying. Who are those Australians? We know the tax will fall, ultimately and overwhelmingly, on older Australians. We know that because last week the Treasurer and the Treasury put out their hit list in their Tax expenditures and insight statement of all the taxes they want to charge and the people who will pay those taxes. It's a very long list. It includes GST, taxes on health, education, food, the family home, negative gearing—it's all there. Superannuation is in the list. It's all in the list.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rubbish!

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

The member opposite should have a read of it. Work expenses—there is $9.9 billion in work expenses. They're coming after the work expenses. We will see what they say in the coming weeks and months. They don't think Australians should be able to claim work expenses. There we are. It was released last week. It found that the biggest beneficiaries of franking credits are Australians over 75. What have those opposite got against Australians over the age of 75? But that's who they're going after. That's who's at the top of the list—and that list is one that every Australian should be deeply concerned about.

Now, the budget acknowledged that a substantial portion of the revenue from this measure will fall on Australians' superannuation, because it's very clear that the Labor Party doesn't think superannuation is the money of Australians; they think it's the party's money to be taxed by them and, worse, as we've seen in recent months, to be spent by them. Every minister wants every pet project to be funded by the government. There's not enough money to go around even if they tax Australians with that whole list. They will still need more. No doubt we will see pet projects that the Labor Party wants to get up for which it asks for Australian superannuation money to go in. They will not only be taxing more; they will be directing where it will be spent.

We know that the impact of this will extend beyond taking money from older Australians—in particular, those over the age of 75. It's just extraordinary that this government thinks that that's okay. We also know it will have a much broader economic impact, and this is something Labor never understands about tax. There are flow-on consequences to our economy. If you want an economy that's strong and delivering higher real wages for the Australian people, you need to have an economy where people are willing to invest and willing to employ, where businesses want to get out there and do things. We know and we've heard, even in the few hours since it became clear that the debate was going to proceed on this legislation today, eminent fund managers say that Labor's legislation would destroy the ability of small companies to raise capital and pay fully franked dividends:

It will significantly inhibit their ability to grow and survival prospects as the Australian economy slows.

The broader flow-on economic impacts of taxes like this are never considered by the Labor Party, because, when it comes to superannuation, as far as Labor's concerned, it's not the money of Australians; it's their money.

We are at a time of soaring cost-of-living pressures. We know that is the No. 1 issue on the minds of Australian households, hardworking Australians making ends meet, Australian businesses struggling with trying to find the people to put on in their businesses to meet the demands of their customers. With those soaring cost-of-living and cost-of-doing-business pressures, Labor's only answer is to raise taxes. Sadly, the expectation is there is going to be another interest rate rise today and more into the future—multiple interest rate rises, according to the Reserve Bank governor when he spoke a couple of weeks ago, are on the way—and at this time the Labor Party's only answer is to impose tax. Worse: they promised before the last election that they wouldn't do it.

Labor promised that they wouldn't make changes to franking credits before the election. They didn't promise it once; they promised it time and time again, as I've documented, and that promise is broken with the legislation before us in this House. They promised they wouldn't change superannuation taxes, and now they have, and no doubt there's more to come, because, whatever Labor promised, it's clear now that they feel no need to stick to those promises. How can Australians trust Labor when they say one thing before an election and do something completely different afterwards? Australians are right to be wondering what Labor will tax next.

Debate adjourned.