4.6.2026 - Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Bill 2026 - Consideration in Detail

Ms SPENDER (Wentworth) (11:55): I've been advocating for tax reform since I was first elected, and I welcome the government's guts to bring a serious proposal forward. I share many of the ambitions the Treasurer has identified in his budget, but I cannot support the bill's proposals in their current form. It's not because I don't support the intent. The government has correctly diagnosed significant problems in Australia's tax system. It's not because I don't support the broad direction of measures. I believe we do need to rebalance the tax system to reduce our reliance on wages and to pay for that by reducing concessions on assets alongside reducing spending as well. But I cannot support the bill in its current form for three reasons. Firstly, not all of the revenue is being returned to the taxpayers. Some of it—$77 billion—has gone to the government, and I don't believe that's what the community wants. Secondly, I think there are real issues that are unresolved with the CGT model the government has chosen. Thirdly, this bill has been rushed through in an unacceptable way. You cannot say that this is the most important tax reform in a generation and then rush it through as it has been. I have put amendments forward in relation to the CGT model because I think this is an area where there is an opportunity to get it right. I recognise that the government has an intellectually consistent approach, which is trying to make sure we only tax real gains, and that is what they're trying to do in this budget. I accept that they've done that well, but I don't think that's the main objective we should have in how we tax CGT. I think we also need to consider international competitiveness and incentives for risk taking that make it easy for people to plan and are simple enough for them to understand. That helps create a fair society. Those are the other considerations. I think the government should, instead of the work that they're doing, move to a reduced flat discount to, say, 35 or 40 per cent rather than an indexation approach, because I think that would narrow the gap between the taxation of labour and capital, produce a model comparable to other countries, raise similar amounts of revenue, not have issues with high-growth businesses or high-growth investments, and people would understand it. Regardless, given that the government...