Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With this government, the devil is always in the detail, and that's what we'll find as we dig into their broken promise on superannuation. Already, once the guidance has come out on how this is going to be applied, we see how the devil in that detail will have a devastating impact on farmers and small-business people.

The SMSF Association has warned that the new rules undermine the longstanding principle that capital gains are not taxed until after they are realised. RSM Australia, a leading accounting firm for the bush, has said that the impact on asset-rich, cash-poor businesses, such as farms and small regional businesses, will be particularly hard. We're taxing income that's not yet been earned. Everyone out there should think about that for a moment: we're taxing income that has not yet been earned.

For farmers and for small businesses, particularly in outer-metropolitan and regional areas, self-managed super funds are a logical and completely legal place to put property assets. They are a logical and legal place to put assets of their business, such as farming land, the premises a professional might work out of, a retailer's office space or a manufacturing business in the bush. These are often held completely legitimately in super funds, and they are the businesses that are going to be hit by Labor's broken promise.