IT is my honour to be officially sworn in this week in Canberra as your Member for Mallee in the 48th Federal Parliament.
Amid a week of pomp and ceremony, the spectre hanging over Canberra was the surprisingly frank release of Treasury advice to Jim Chalmers that he would need to cut spending and raise taxes to get his budget back into balance.
This brings me to the globally unprecedented new tax on unrealised capital gains in superannuation (that is, gains purely on paper, not actual gains because the asset, such as the farm or business premises, have not been sold).
A Mallee farmer, Ross, told me recently Labor’s asset tax grab means he will have to sell land to pay the new tax, every year.
This is an outrageous and completely unfair tax, that once again goes for the jugular of farmers.
Independent modelling shows that Labor’s asset tax grab on superannuation balances over $3 million will reap over $2 billion in taxes in its first year of operation – and over $40 billion in the next decade.
Labor’s $3 million threshold is not being indexed to rise with inflation, meaning when younger Australians retire, millions of Australians will be caught by the tax.
Worse still, Treasurer Chalmers has put a sneaky clause in giving him the power to tax you even harder without putting the increase through Parliament.
This tax grab is a Trojan horse and to mix a metaphor, beware the Greens bearing gifts.
Labor can pass legislation in the Senate with the Greens’ support alone.
The Greens are keeping their talks with Labor on this tax grab secret, but they previously stated they wanted a $2 million threshold.
Independent modelling of the Greens’ position would immediately rake in $8 billion a year.
Labor have had the temerity to claim their new asset tax grab will apply retrospectively from July 1, 2025 but the bill has not yet even gone through Parliament.
Family farms and small businesses that hold land, and hard-working Australians that are asset-heavy but cash-poor, will be the hardest hit and The Nationals are fighting against it.
