Alex Antic (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for the interjections! Thank you, Acting Deputy President. What I was saying is that Labor are making this up as they go along. Let's go through what the Prime Minister had done in the past two weeks. The Prime Minister has refused to rule out further changes to superannuation; the Treasurer has refused to rule out changes to negative gearing; and the Treasurer has also refused to rule out changes to capital gains tax, including the imposition on the family home. Then, the Prime Minister rushed out and said, 'No, we won't touch your house,' and the Treasurer said, 'Oh, well, I guess that's right.' So we know where this is headed. We know it. This is a slippery slope. This begins and ends with CGT, with franking credits, with further shifting of the goalposts. That is what we are seeing here.

As Peter Dutton points out, ahead of the election Labor promised solemnly they weren't going to change the goalposts on super. The Prime Minister was unambiguous on that, and now, less than a year into government—we're talking about 10 months into government—the goalposts have been shifted. It's clear that Mr Albanese and Dr Chalmers are coming after more of your money. We know that now. We've seen it. The Australian people have seen it, and it's too late for them as Labor simply won't slow down on this. They can't control their own spending and they won't stop coming after our money. To believe them when they say that out of $150 billion they're going to be satisfied with $2 billion out of revenue is just an absurdity. It's just simply not going to happen. Bill Shorten was talking about this when he was the Labor leader, but at least in that instance—and we all remember that fateful campaign—Bill Shorten had the decency to be honest with the Australian people, about his plans, before the 2019 election. Unfortunately, this current Prime Minister can't do that.

Labor's claim is plainly wrong. Their claim that the superannuation policy change will only affect 80,000 people is wrong. Over the time, the number of Australians taxed will increase dramatically because of the reasons I've already outlined. We know they're coming after more. Labor's being tricky, and you cannot take their trust on tax. The Grattan Institute has estimated that within 30 years about one in 10 workers will begin to retire with super balances of around $3 million—