Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Treasury Laws Amendment (2023 Measures No. 2) Bill 2023. The coalition will support this bill, as the intention of the bill is to implement what are essentially a number of budget measures of the former coalition government, so it is only right that we would support this bill. The bill supports our primary producers, it supports small business, it enables support for homeownership and it also provides relief to low-income earners who are struggling with inflation, particularly those low-income earners that are struggling with persistent inflation—inflation that we've seen, over the last three quarters, with a seven in front of it and inflation that is not simply a global phenomenon but a domestic phenomenon that, to a very large extent, is being driven by the decisions made by this government. So it is only right to support those low-income earners who are struggling from the effects of inflation, from the effects of a cost-of-living crisis and from the effects of a decline in their standard of living. This is a marked contrast to the government's budget because—let's face it—it was a budget that left Australians behind.

This bill has five schedules. It's a Treasury laws ominous bill. The first schedule amends the Medicare Levy Act 1986 and the A New Tax System (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Act 1999 to index low-income and family Medicare levy thresholds in line with the Consumer Price Index. This will increase the number of people who fall under those thresholds who would otherwise be captured due to inflation. Schedule 2 addresses a grandfathering issue from the sale of the Commonwealth Bank, which may seem like a long time ago, but that issue prohibits the future sale of the Commonwealth Bank's superannuation fund to another asset. Schedule 3 amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to allow primary producers to treat carbon abatement income as primary production income for the purposes of the Farm Management Deposits Scheme and assessing income tax averaging arrangements for primary producers. Schedule 4 amends the Taxation Administration Act 1953 to reduce the GDP adjustment factor for the 2023-24 income tax year. This is the lever that is used to calculate PAYG, pay-as-you-go, and GST instalments that are payable to the taxpayer. This measure implements the 'Small business support—helping small business manage tax instalments and improve cash flow' measure from the 2023-24 budget. Schedule 5 amends the NHFIC Act to allow NHFIC to be given direction in its investment mandate with regard to eligibility for the home guarantees. This is achieved by putting into NHFIC's objects early access to the housing market for Australians who have not owned real estate for 10 years.

Schedule 4 of the bill is one that I think is worth further investigation. It builds on the coalition's commitment in our March 2022 budget to support small businesses with their cash flow by adjusting GDP adjustment factors that the ATO uses to calculate PAYG and GST instalments. This will be revenue neutral over time, while supporting small business to keep more of their own cash—certainly something that we know small businesses are struggling with right now. Cash flow for small business has really reached crisis point. Energy prices are going up. Rents are going up. Small businesses are finding it harder and harder to employ more Australians because wages are going up. Maintaining the viability of a small business now is becoming more and more difficult each and every day. That is why cash flow is critical . We know that cash flow is one of the very biggest challenges for any small business.

This legislation is long overdue. It builds on the coalition's strong record of supporting small businesses' access to finance and assistance to improve their cash flow. A number of measures taken under the previous coalition government included establishing a payments time reporting framework to name and shame the late payers to small business, to help small businesses manage their cash flow when dealing with competitive tensions or the disproportionate scale of large businesses dealing with small businesses. We also established payment times that connected procurement policy to ensure that, when the government contracts small businesses, government contractors pay those small businesses in the supply chain on government terms. It is profoundly important for government to be a procurer of best practice. We also shifted payment times for government contracts to 30 days, or five days if they used e-invoicing. E-invoicing can be one of the potentially great productivity leaps if grasped by both government and the private sector.

We also shifted from monthly to quarterly BAS reporting for small and medium enterprises. And, of course, we restored and expanded the instant asset write-off, which allowed small businesses to make investments in assets that can create productivity and profitability in their business and instantly write-off the entire value of those assets, rather than depreciating them over time. We also cut the small-business tax rate to 25 per cent, and we increased the small-business tax offset for sole traders. The coalition supported Australian small businesses with over $35.8 billion of cash-flow relief throughout COVID, something that we know we heard much about in a post-COVID world. So many small businesses came to us and said, 'Without the support that the coalition government gave us, we would simply not be around today.' Now the challenge is to make sure these businesses aren't just around today but around tomorrow as well.

This is all the more important because of how the government has treated small business in the latest budget. They have decimated the instant asset write-off and reduced the asset value cap essentially down to 2018 levels. Can you imagine trying to buy an oven or a refrigerator today? Of course you're going to pay so much more for it than you would have in 2018, and yet that's where the instant asset write-off level is now, thanks to this government. They've also ended the loss carry-back scheme—again, something that is profoundly important, particularly for those small businesses that make profits in some years and losses in others, in helping them manage their cash flows.

They've also abolished the entrepreneurs program. How are we supposed to have a productive society, a productive economy if we don't encourage that next generation of young people—of older Australians as well—to start their own businesses, to take a risk, to make that big leap, to turn that kernel of an idea into a business opportunity? They've also excluded more than 2.5 million small businesses from energy bill relief. One of the greatest costs that small businesses are facing right now is, of course, the rising cost of energy. In fact, the headlines in the newspapers today reported that Australians are now facing higher energy prices than almost anywhere else in the world.

This is a government that is intent on leaving small business behind, but it's not just small business; it is also first homeowners. This bill specifically enables the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation to build on the previous government's work to ensure that homeownership remains in reach of many ordinary Australians. The bill will allow NHFIC to support Australians who have not held a property interest in Australia in the preceding 10 years. This includes divorced women, older women and long-term renters, and it will allow Australians to re-enter the property market and achieve that great Australian dream of owning your own home—so important, particularly, for older women. We know that one of the greatest economic indicators of security in retirement is homeownership.

The expansion of eligibility recognises the importance of stable and secure housing and provides a foundation for social and economic wellbeing. But the reality is that we're seeing a government that's abandoned homeownership as a goal, just as it has with inflation, just as it has with productivity. They have raised the white flag on the great Australian dream of homeownership. A year after the election, the government's Help to Buy Scheme, which was central, a signature policy in the lead up to the election, is nowhere to be seen. The coalition left the government with a housing sector that was in a strong shape. More Australians were getting into homes. More Australians were building homes. More homes were being built. And there was a huge pipeline of residential construction in place. This has all just disappeared in 12 short months. So, while this is a welcome measure, it's not sufficient for a government that is leaving behind the Australians who are renting and who are saving and who are trying to get ahead.

The bill also makes a small measure, a very routine measure admittedly, to adjust Australian families on middle incomes with the cost of impacts of inflation. This is notably only to the extent that it was missing in the budget last month. It was a budget that made it very clear that Labor has no plans to help Australians with the cost-of-living crisis. It was a budget that made clear that in a cost-of-living crisis Labor's only plans are to put further fuel on the inflation fire. After less than a year in office, government spending will, in fact, increase by $185 billion. That is an expansionary budget in anyone's mind. Labor can't spend its way out of a cost-of-living crisis.

This measure stands in stark contrast with what's actually needed in Australia right now and what they did not receive just a few Tuesdays ago. What Australia needed was a budget that actively reduced inflation, that has as a priority a specific objective of producing inflation. But, in fact, the budget just a few Tuesdays ago actively removed the objective of reducing inflation from its fiscal strategy. It was there in October with the first budget that Labor delivered, but it was actively removed by May. Labor raised the white flag. They said: 'Inflation isn't our problem. That is not something we can deal with. We don't know what to do here. The RBA will have to do all of the heavy lifting.'

By contrast to this bill, the budget obviously makes life much harder for Australians—for small businesses, families, self-funded retirees and mortgage holders. There is a small indexation change to the Medicare levy, but that certainly doesn't make up for the pressures that Australian families are feeling under Labor's inflation. Unlike this Albanese government, a typical Australian family with kids now will be around $25,000 a year worse off than they were just one year ago. That's not the sort of money that you can find down the back of the couch. It is not small change. Labor need to take responsibility for this.

Labor will not build a stronger economy and they didn't deliver a budget that was fair to all Australians. The budget in fact failed hardworking Australians right at a time when they needed a plan to address inflation and the cost-of-living crisis. There is no plan to address the unprecedented increase in net overseas migration that will see 1.5 million new migrants come into Australia over the next five years. The budget cuts infrastructure spending. It increases migration and cuts infrastructure spending. It doesn't address public enemy No. 1, which is inflation. It fails to address congestion. It fails to address housing and rental prices. It is failing to address the liveability and amenity of our towns and suburbs.

The coalition wants Australians to do well. Indeed, Australians deserve better. But, at the moment, we're being held back by a government that has no economic plan for the future. It has no economic plan to deal with public enemy No. 1—to slay the inflation dragon. There is no such thing as cost-of-living relief for all Australians unless you can bring inflation down. Unless this government can address inflation, it is not doing its job. It is threatening the standard of living for all Australians. So we will support this bill because it reflects coalition measures— (Time expired)