BILLS
Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Bill 2026
Income Tax Rates Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Bill 2026
Second Reading
Mr BATT (Hinkler—Deputy Nationals Whip) (21:29): I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Bill 2026. I look at this through the eyes of the great people of Hinkler—the young people saving for a deposit for their first home, the elderly in their golden years, the veterans who fought for our freedom, the farmers feeding our nation and the world, and the small businesses having a crack, trying to navigate that red tape. And I’m hearing loud and clear that the people from the community I serve, from Hervey Bay, Bundaberg, Childers and everywhere in between, did not vote for new taxes. They didn’t vote for broken promises, for barriers or for more burdens in a cost-of-living crisis. Hinkler, like all of regional Australia, has been left with nothing to show. There’s zero substance in this budget, and all we want is a fair go.
Schedule 1 of the bill introduces changes to the capital gains tax regime which I oppose, and schedule 2 introduces changes to the negative gearing structure which I also oppose. The Prime Minister promised, in his own words, more than 50 times before the last election, that he would not introduce these taxes. This is simply a bad-faith budget that does nothing to improve intergenerational inequality. It makes the problem worse.
As Bundaberg financial planner Bill Beimers posed to me last week, ‘Are we genuinely addressing the structural issues holding Australia back or are we simply asking a smaller and smaller group of productive Australians to carry more of the load?’ Bill is managing director of SEQ Advice and former chair of the Advisers Association. He goes about doing the best he can for the people of Hinkler and further afield. He says that every day he’s witnessing small-business owners carrying enormous pressure just to keep their doors open. He sees employers fighting to retain staff and absorb rising costs, and they continue to invest despite increasing uncertainty. Families and individuals are taking real financial risks to build something meaningful not just for themselves but for their communities and families.
As Bill correctly states, these are the people who sponsor local sport, employ apprentices, support local charities and create opportunity, and they themselves go without to keep regional economies alive. Australians are feeling increasingly uneasy, and this Labor budget is amplifying concerns. Bill says we continue to hear language around ‘intergenerational fairness’ and ‘affordability’, particularly in relation to housing. But at some point we have to ask an honest question about who is actually carrying the load, because housing affordability will not magically improve by redistributing more wealth from those who build, invest, employ and take the risks. In fact, it improves when we increase supply and when we restore confidence, encourage investment and reward productivity and enterprise rather than quietly disincentivising it.
Australia must only bring in as many immigrants as it can house. Under Labor, our nation has taken in 1.4 million people. That’s the population of Adelaide, far more than it has built homes for. In the government’s own budget papers it states that 35,000 fewer homes will be built as a direct consequence of their new taxes. That’s not our number; that’s their number. When you tax something, you get less of it. That’s not ideology. It’s economics 101. The more you tax housing investment, the less housing investment you get. The government has, sadly, decided that that’s a price young Australians should pay.
Take Amy from Childers as an example. She tells me that she and her fiance have been investing in shares for the past few years—’a nest egg’, as she says. It was designed to give them the life they had always dreamed of—a dream of a decent house on a couple of acres so that, when they have a family, their kids can build forts in trees and ride motorbikes, just like the way she and her fiance grew up. But Amy says this Labor budget greatly hampers their chances of getting ahead in life. This couple, a concreter and a council employee, haven’t had inheritances or handouts from parents. They deserve a fair go, but they’re not even finding a glimmer of hope in this bad budget.
These young people of Hinkler want to build wealth and build a future. But, while young Australians like Amy deposit their first home deposit in ETFs, shares and crypto in a bid to bring forward the day they can own their own home, this government has looked at that ambition and said, ‘We want to tax it.’ That’s not a housing policy. That’s a betrayal.
The Financial Services Council says young Australians, especially around the age of 35 who are saving for a first home deposit, could have 40 per cent of their deposit growth taxed by the capital gains tax changes. The Property Council of Australia says CGT and negative gearing change create investment uncertainty and will reduce housing supply. The Real Estate Institute of Australia tell us that the negative gearing restriction will reduce rental supply and push rents even higher. I’ve heard situations in Hinkler where landlords are already increasing rents, and that is what comes of this unfair budget of broken promises. When the rents go up and you build fewer homes, you don’t help first home buyers. The whole package is a comprehensive assault on the aspiration of young Australians to own the roof over their heads. A coalition government would establish a $5 billion housing infrastructure fund to unlock up to 400,000 homes by funding essential last-mile infrastructure—water, sewerage, power and access roads. That’s the smart path to take.
I note this week’s article in the Australian with the headline ‘Employers warn tradie shortage will derail government’s housing promise’. It says:
A crash in apprenticeship commencements will exacerbate trade shortages and undermine the Albanese government’s promise of more houses and Australian-made products, employers have warned.
It also said: ‘Official data shows the number of Australians taking up a trade fell 31 per cent between 2021 and 2025. Commencements across all trades have dropped 9.4 per cent in the 12 months to September, with the manufacturing trades hit hardest with a 21 per cent shortfall.’
Despite the government’s claims of building more homes, construction trade commencements have slumped 6.2 per cent in a year, along with a 12 per cent drop in the number of apprentices starting in the electricity, gas, water and waste sectors. Even in the boom industry of mining, apprenticeship commencements are down 13 per cent in a year, based on data from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research. The Australian Industry Group says the government’s decision to abolish apprentice subsidies for companies with more than 200 employees, which hire 40 per cent of apprentices, and to cut subsidies by 20 per cent for medium sized businesses makes no sense.
Unlike Labor, the coalition won’t limit infrastructure pipeline funding to under two per cent for regional areas. We will reinvest where it counts in the regions. We will simplify the National Construction Code to cut up to $70,000 off the cost of a new home. The first home buyer five per cent deposit scheme will be reserved for Australian citizens only. Labor has allowed 50,000 noncitizens to access it. That ends under the coalition. In the month of May, with the backdrop of a very unpopular Labor budget, I asked small businesses of my electorate to have a say. I conducted a quick survey to gauge confidence and when asked ‘do you feel confident about the future of your business?’ from the first run of surveys completed and returned, 59 per cent of respondents said they are not confident. More than half rated electricity costs and fuel prices as the main concerns. Wage pressures and Labor’s obsession with red tape aren’t too far behind on the list of challenges facing Hinkler small businesses.
The government is coming for small business with a 47 per cent stake claim. They’ve done none of the work and taken none of the risk, but they want nearly half the business. Small businesses are the self-starters of our nation, particularly in regions like Hinkler. They work weekends, work nights, sacrifice holidays and do everything to put themselves in a position to get ahead. The government’s answer to that sacrifice is to come along and tackle them at the finish line. The Prime Minister says Labor believes in aspiration for all, yet the Treasurer is committed to doubling the tax rate on small businesses when they go to sell. Unless his ambition is to keep small business small, to encourage failure, these exemptions don’t come close to meeting the needs of small businesses across this country.
It’s really simple. The age-old saying rings true. Labor can’t manage money, so they’re coming after yours. They’ve presented to Australians a death tax, a tax on family savings, a tax on renters, first homebuyers and young Australians trying to get ahead. We have a tax on small businesses, start-ups and entrepreneurs, the engine room of the Australian economy. This is a budget of broken promises and a budget that breaks the Australian dream. It’s an assault on aspiration, pulling the ladder of opportunity up from young Australians before they get their first foot on the rung. Even the Prime Minister has confirmed $273 billion in taxes over the next nine years. These are taxes Australians didn’t vote for. Debt is heading to $1.5 trillion. The interest bill is $80,000 a minute, $4.8 million every hour. Today’s debt is tomorrow’s taxes, and it’s the next generation being handed that bill.
The Labor government can’t even name one small business that supports its budget and higher taxes—not one. This budget is a disaster for small businesses. Labor has introduced the biggest tax changes in a generation without a mandate from the Australian people or small businesses. Under the changes introduced, a 30 per cent minimum tax on discretionary trusts will begin from July 2028, while the 50 per cent capital gains tax will be replaced with CPI indexation, and a minimum 30 per cent tax on gains will apply from July 2027.
If these tax changes that Labor has surprised the nation with become law, a coalition government will repeal them—the CGT changes, the negative gearing changes and the death tax hidden in the trust rules. When government taxes something, you get less of it—less housing, less saving, less investment, less small business. We will back aspiration and reward hard work by scrapping these taxes.
Labor’s changes to CGT and negative gearing restrictions, plus the discretionary family trust crackdown, have now proven to be a blatant budget grab of $77 billion. That’s an overreach of $77 billion. This Labor government is the highest taxing government in our nation’s history, so no wonder we on this side of the House are lining up to tell the stories from our electorates of the people who are already feeling the pain. And you won’t find many on the other side to talk up this budget, despite Labor’s being directed to go out to sell it with every dollar they’ve got left in their PR allowance. It’s going to be a very hard slog for them to sell, because everyone knows how hard it is to polish a turd.
The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Hinkler will not use that language in the chamber. He will withdraw that and apologise to the chamber.
Mr BATT: I’ll withdraw that and apologise. The self-starters are what built this country. Our message to those targeted by this budget is simple: we are going to back you to be its future. You work. You risk. You should get ahead. I conclude with another quote from Bundaberg financial planner Bill Beimers:
Australia became a strong and prosperous country because generations of people were willing to risk capital, work extraordinarily hard, build businesses, create jobs and invest in growth. That spirit of good faith should be protected and encouraged—not treated as an increasingly convenient source of revenue.
I support schedule 3 of this bill, the working Australians tax offset, or WATO—a tax offset of $250 for around 13 million Aussies from 2027-28. I also support schedule 4: giving a standard deduction for work related expenses of up to $1,000 from 2026-27.
Bill Beimers continued:
You can absolutely support vulnerable Australians, while still recognising that aspiration, entrepreneurship and investment are not problems to solve. They are essential to the future of the economy.
For regional electorates like Hinkler, a fair go is all we need—not broken promises, not barriers, not more burdens, just a fair go. That is why I oppose schedule 1, the CGT adjustments, and schedule 2, negative gearing restrictions, of this bill.