Matters of Urgency — Taxation

Sue Lines

Senator Colbeck has submitted a proposal, under standing order 75, today. It is shown at item 12 on today's Order of Business.

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Albanese Labor Government to explain why Australians are being forced to pay the price for Labor's spending problem through a toxic tax agenda that punishes hard work, investment and ambition, while empowering Canberra bureaucrats to decide which businesses and Australians deserve relief and which do not.

Is consideration of the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

Richard Colbeck

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Albanese Labor Government to explain why Australians are being forced to pay the price for Labor's spending problem through a toxic tax agenda that punishes hard work, investment and ambition, while empowering Canberra bureaucrats to decide which businesses and Australians deserve relief and which do not.

It's with some disappointment that I feel the need to move this urgency motion today. It's sad that we're in this particular position. This toxic agenda of this government is driven through broken promises, through the breaking of the government's word and by the politics of envy. The really tragic part of this toxic tax agenda is that, despite all of the things the government says this is supposed to do and despite all of the things they want it to do, it's not doing any of them. They talk about wanting to make it easier for people to buy a house. This toxic tax proposal actually makes it harder for a young person to save for a house by taxing, at a higher rate, the mechanisms that young Australians are using to save their first home deposit.

So, when the government goes out and tells young Australians that they are trying to help them get into the housing market, it's actually the other way around. The higher taxes that this government is seeking to charge Australian people with their dirty deal with the Greens are actually making it harder for young people to save. It's not making housing any more affordable, which the government promised that they would do in 2022. At that election, they promised more affordable housing. That hasn't happened—another broken promise—but it will put up rents. The government's own budget papers say that. They also say that these measures will mean that 35,000 fewer houses will be built, so there will be less stock in the market for young Australians to compete against others for, and that's on top of the fact that under this government we are building 30,000 fewer houses per year than we were building under the previous government.

There are 170,000 houses being built a year; 200,000 houses a year were being built previously. That's because of the toxic policies of this government. They'll get up and they'll tell you this is all meant to be about intergenerational fairness. It is not, in particular, when this government went to the last election saying there would be no changes to capital gains tax. That was their promise. They promised, 50 times, that there would be no changes to capital gains tax, and of course now they say, 'We've changed our mind.' So what does the government's word mean? Add that to the fact that they said that there would be no changes to other taxes. They broke that promise too, so how does anyone believe anything this government says, including in this debate?

They'll get up and tell you: 'Everything's fine. We're about intergenerational fairness. We're about doing this for young Australians.' But you can't believe a word this government says, because, as they've proven so many times—a $275 reduction in our power bills by 2025. They said that 97 times at the 2022 election, and it never came to pass—only increasing power prices. Lower cost of living—they've driven inflation the other way. Lower housing prices—we know how that's going. Then they promised there would be no changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing, but they've brought this toxic policy in through a dirty deal with the Greens. The effect of this process is that Nick McKim is effectively writing tax policy for the Australian government these days. That's what's happening now. Nick McKim from the Greens, which is the party that wants to drive the economy down, is writing tax policy for this Labor government. They should be ashamed. They should apologise to the Australian people.

Corinne Mulholland

I rise to oppose this urgency motion. While I respect my learned colleague Senator Colbeck, this motion comes straight out of central casting for the Liberal Party. It defends vested interests over working people. We all remember it was the Liberal Party who went to the last election with a toxic tax agenda. The Liberals proposed higher taxes. The Liberals wanted to repeal our tax cuts for workers. Every Australian worker would have been financially worse off under a Prime Minister Peter Dutton. Thank God that didn't happen. So we will not be lectured to about taxes by the party that ran for government proposing to increase them—a party who deliberately set policies to cause wages to stagnate for a decade. Under Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison, life got harder year on year for ordinary Australians—a decade of stagnant wages, a decade of falling productivity, a decade of bulk-billing rates in absolute freefall. That is the Liberal Party record.

Now let's talk about Labor's. Our budget backs Australians who earn their living through work. This is unashamedly a budget for working people. It cuts taxes for more than 14 million Australians, with a permanent reduction in the lowest marginal rate from 16c down to 15c and then to 14c. That is money in the pocket of every worker every year, ongoing, not a one-off sugar hit. That is permanent relief for working people.

We're also rebuilding the healthcare system that the Liberals deliberately ran into the ground. We promised urgent care clinics across the country at the last election, and we've opened 137 of them right across Australia. I'm proud to say there are 26 clinics in Queensland alone, in Brisbane, Buderim, Cairns, Capalaba, Carindale, Gladstone, Deception Bay, Greenslopes, Mackay and, most recently, Caloundra, where we opened a clinic last week following the Prime Minister's visit to the Sunshine Coast. Since then, the Caloundra Medicare Urgent Care Clinic has seen over 110 patients in the first few days of opening—no appointment, no out-of-pocket costs, just your Medicare card. We know that urgent care clinics are driving competition in the marketplace, coupled with our bulk-billing incentives, and bulk billing is going back up under Labor after those opposite tried to end it. From November 2025 to January this year, more than 18 per cent of GP visits were bulk-billed, the biggest quarterly increase since the pandemic. In communities like Longman on the north side of Brisbane, around Caboolture, bulk-billing rates have jumped 30 per cent. That is real cost-of-living relief for real families.

Senator Colbeck's motion talks about who this government's budget empowers, and I will tell him proudly that this budget empowers working people. We've delivered a 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood educators, who are predominantly women—workers who were chronically underpaid and undervalued under that side of politics. A typical educator is now earning more than $150 more a week under Labor. From July next month, paid parental leave rises to 26 weeks—six months of government funded leave for families welcoming a new child, up from 18 weeks when we first came to government in 2022. The Liberals didn't support it. One Nation didn't support it. It was Labor.

In the last week, Australians got a front-row seat to see what a Liberal-One Nation government would look like and deliver for working families, and that is a slap in the face to the 1.4 million children in early education and child care and their families who rely on child care. Those opposite don't support the childcare subsidy. They'd rather see families pay more for childcare every single day. The three-day guarantee? They didn't support it; they voted against it. A pay rise for early educators? One Nation mocked it last week. What is on offer from those opposite under a Liberal-One Nation government? Questioning women who take time off to be with their new child. You cannot champion family values in this country and undervalue the work of working women in our society. You can't say you support workers while undermining working women in this country. Australians are being sold a pup from those opposite. One Nation say they stand up for working people, but all they do is take their marching orders from wealthy billionaires.

Steph Hodgins-May

This government does have a toxic tax agenda, but that toxicity is less about who this government chooses to tax and more about who this government refuses to tax. This government had a choice to make about who it valued—disabled Australians or multinational gas corporations. Their answer could not be more clear, because that is the choice sitting behind these cuts.

Disabled Australians and their families have told the parliament what the proposed changes to the NDIS would mean for their lives, for their independence and for their dignity. They have asked to be heard, they have demanded to be heard, and they have demanded that this government listen, and yet, instead of just staring down a handful of gas exporters in this country and demanding they contribute more, Labor is forcing disabled Australians to carry the burden of its budget choices—just a handful of companies who should be bringing in more than $17 billion per year in revenue that could be used to strengthen not cut essential supports like the NDIS and to make it easier not harder for everyday Australians. Instead, that money is being siphoned offshore. Maybe not all of it's going offshore, because tens of thousands of it are going back into the campaign coffers of the corporate parties in this place: Labor, Liberal and One Nation. Of course, a few million need to be put aside to fund the PR campaigns against reforms like a tax on gas. Billions remain untaxed instead of going out to help everyday Australians who need it.

This is not about whether they are difficult decisions to make, because governments are forced to make decisions every day. We appreciate that. The question is: who gets protected, and who is sacrificed? Why is there always a reason not to tax the super profits of multinational companies but never one to strengthen the supports that people rely on every single day? The Greens have fought to give the disability community more time, more scrutiny and more protections, but the message from that community has been clear: these cuts cannot proceed. They must not proceed. This is Labor capitulating to the right, to the Liberals, the Nationals and Gina Rinehart's One Nation, who are constantly inventing new ways to punch down on Australians who need support.

For months, we have heard the same rhetoric about cracking down on rorts and getting spending under control, but, when the inquiry heard from the people who will actually be impacted by these changes, we heard that these cuts aren't targeting waste; they're targeting people. Instead of listening to those Australians, Labor has chosen to echo the talking points of those who have spent years undermining public support for the NDIS and looking for opportunities to shrink it. The government cannot claim that there is no alternative while billions of dollars in gas profits leave Australian shores untaxed every single day.

Disabled Australians are not a budget repair measure. If this government has the courage to ask people who are already struggling to do more, then it should have the courage to ask multinational corporations or to demand multinational corporations making billions from Australia's resources to pay what they owe, because political courage is not balancing the budget off the backs of disabled people. Political courage is not letting lobbyists write the rules in this joint. Political courage is not taking the path of least resistance and hoping nobody notices. Real political courage is taking on the vested interests. It is making gas corporations pay what they owe Australians. It's staring down the gambling lobby and banning gambling advertising on our screens. It's being prepared to stand up to industries with money, access and influence when the public interest demands it and when the Australian people demand it.

Instead, this government take the easier path, the path that sees them beating down on disabled Australians. It's asking more from people who already have less while refusing to demand more from corporations making billions of dollars of profit off our Australian resources. Disabled Australians should not be paying the price for that failure of political courage from the government, and they should not be treated as collateral damage because Labor is too afraid and too timid and too gutless to stare down those corporations and to actually take them on.

Long debate text truncated.