Wednesday, 28 October 2026

Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026

Income Tax Rates Amendment (Minimum Tax on Discretionary Trusts) Bill 2026

Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 4) Bill 2026

House of Representatives

Mr Tim Wilson MP:

I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the Government did not take a minimum tax on discretionary trusts to the 2025 election and promised before that election not to raise taxes;

(b) Treasury's own Impact Analysis says around 350,000 small businesses operate through a discretionary trust, and that each of them is left with three options:

(i) pay a new 30 per cent tax; or

(ii) restructure and pay stamp duty; or

(iii) lock in fixed shares for life in a one-off election in 2028-29;

(c) Treasury puts the compliance cost at an average of $141.5 million per year; and

(d) twelve matters are left to legislative instruments that have not been released, and consultation ran for less than the 30-day minimum set by the Government's own Office of Impact Analysis; and

(2) calls on the Government to:

(a) withdraw the minimum tax on discretionary trusts, or, failing that, delay the start of the minimum tax on discretionary trusts by 12 months, to 1 July 2029; and

(b) split the bill such that the capital gains tax amendments, the definition of a new residential dwelling and the payday superannuation transitional relief can be dealt with separately".

I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026, the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Minimum Tax on Discretionary Trusts) Bill 2026 and the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 4) Bill 2026, which are being debated in cognate. Let's be clear: the coalition opposes Labor's small business tax on trusts, and we oppose all three bills. The last of them is rushed, and it's a botched attempt to patch the damage that Labor's own capital gains tax increases will have on startups. A coalition government will axe Labor's startup tax and end the tax breaks for electric vehicles altogether, because we believe it's important that we have a sustainable budget position. And when the House considers the bill in detail, I will move amendments to split the bill, with small business tax on trusts out of the bill.

We have a situation right now where small businesses of the nation are screaming for help. They feel tortured by their government. Whether it's higher costs, taxes or regulations, the Albanese government's attitude towards small business is to see no small business and to hear no small business, and they certainly do not want to talk to small businesses. As a consequence, the government simply has no understanding of the impact of their higher-tax agenda on the small businesses of this country. Our taxaholic Treasurer is consistently focused on how he increases costs on Australian small businesses so he can feed his own spending addiction. And as we know, as we've just seen from the latest CPI data that came out minutes ago, that means we're seeing higher inflation pressure and of course higher interest rates, and unfortunately we no doubt are going to see further increases in interest rates as a consequence of the decision of the Reserve Bank on Tuesday. The government is playing a game of interest rate chicken with the Reserve Bank, and, once again, their hand is being forced by an Albanese government addicted to spending.

But the problem is that the more they continue to spend the more they have to tax. Today's debt is tomorrow's taxes and it's today's inflation, and small businesses are being asked to put their hands in their pockets because the government cannot pull its own belt in. You just need to look at the suite of these measures in these tax bills. And let's just be very clear about this. They're called 'tax reform' bills, but tax reform is not something that occurs when you increase taxes on Australian communities.

I think it's really important that we be honest about this. These might be bills introduced into the parliament by the government, but these tax bills are also in alignment with the tax agenda of the member for Wentworth, who consistently has gone out and flagged higher taxes on the constituents of Wentworth. And of course, the government, the Labor Party, has turned around, when they've said, 'Increase taxes over here but cut them over there' and said, 'We'll just take the tax hikes on the Wentworth constituency.' There's a point at which business needs to wake up and realise that, while you might think politics works like business, politics does not work like business. Business leaders who think politics works like business get dudded, because the Labor Party has a rapacious appetite and a lust for power. They use that power to empower themselves and to reward their friends. If you think you can negotiate with these people, if you think you can negotiate with this government to somehow get a better tax system, you are deluded.

And that is what we've seen. The member for Wentworth supported increasing taxes on innovative businesses, increasing taxes on small businesses, and the government took those tax increases but didn't give the offsets that she proposed. As a consequence, small businesses around this country are now rallying to try and see change, to have an advocate in the opposition and the coalition, because we knew at every step that when you put forward higher taxes on small businesses then the government is going to deliver on those and is going to punish small business. Our job is to stand up and fight against that. But the innovative businesses that turned around and supported the campaign by the member for Wentworth and now feel dudded seem shocked that the Labor Party, in their desperate lust for money and power, are of course going through and imposing higher taxes on them without the overall benefits and tax cuts elsewhere. This is what happens. Politics is binary. The government wins, or the opposition wins. It's a contest between the organised and the disorganised. The teals at every point have consistently sold out the constituencies they claim to advocate for and represent because they have a naive understanding or belief that they can somehow deliver better outcomes for the community. The Treasurer at every point has been playing the member for Wentworth. The Treasurer has been using the opportunity the member for Wentworth has provided to increase taxes on innovative businesses. The Treasurer has been playing the teals like a fiddle, and they have enjoyed every step of the way until they realised how much the Treasurer has been using and manipulating them.

Now we are at this point where the government is introducing and trying to ram through this parliament higher costs and higher taxes on small businesses and innovative businesses and selling Australians down the sewer, which ironically is a contest because the Prime Minister has a particular penchant for sewers at the moment, it seems. We need to understand the real impact this is going to have on Australian small businesses. Right now, they are struggling with record insolvencies and even higher rates of voluntary closures because they can't find somebody to sell their business to or the government has bullied them into submission. They no longer feel that they can get ahead. Small businesses are gasping for air as they are experiencing higher costs and higher taxes as a consequence of this government, whether it's increasing the cost of their energy bill, payday super and the impact that has on cash flow, or the surcharges ban and the impact that has on cash flow.

Only the other day, I spoke to a small business, and they were telling me about how they're paying about $10,000 a month in surcharge fees, and the government has for the first time turned around and said, 'You've got to absorb that cost.' But, by the way, with gross hypocrisy and double standards, they turn around to the Australian Taxation Office and say, 'You can't provide the pathway for people to use exactly the same payment methods.' Apparently every small business across this nation is expected to accept legal tender except for the Australian Taxation Office. Today, we've revealed the Australian Taxation Office is engaging in automated fines against small businesses when they don't even have any data that there is a wrong and are then threatening small businesses with 200 per cent fines. The answer from the Albanese government is: 'Let them eat taxes. Let small business eat taxes.'

This government has no empathy for the small businesses of this nation. This government has no understanding of the pain, the suffering and the torture they are deliberately inflicting—unless, of course, they're getting their jollies from it. And sometimes you have to question whether this Albanese government is enjoying the pain it is inflicting on small business, because no rational actor could honestly believe that this government could inflict so much harm, so much damage and so much anxiety on Australian small businesses as the Albanese government, unless they drew a sick pathological joy from the exercise.

When I talk to small businesses across this country, what they are doing is screaming for hope. They are desperate for change, and they cannot understand why the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and so many members of the Labor caucus seem to find a sick fascination and joy in their pain. They feel tortured by this government, and there is a time and a place at the next election where they are going to have their voice heard. And, when that voice is heard, I'm afraid that a number of members on that side of the chamber who are currently there are going to be thrown out, and they deserve to be thrown out because of the number of lives and the number of families that they have destroyed, and they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Even worse than that, these three bills, as they're now introduced, are deliberately putting targets on so many small businesses in the government's rapacious appetite for revenue. Just look at what they're doing on their small-business tax on trusts. So many small businesses don't even understand that they are yet the target of this bill. This is why we tried to refer these bills off to the House economics committee—a good committee, one I used to chair when I was last in parliament—and that was for the Labor Party members' benefit, so they could finally understand the insanity that their treasurer was engaging them in. If they want to follow him like lemmings off the political cliff, they have to understand the consequences of the decisions that they are making. This tax on trusts is deliberately targeted towards small businesses, many of whom don't know they're impacted. Most Australians who run small businesses were advised by their financial adviser or their accountant or their solicitor to go on and establish a trust. They didn't choose to do so because they thought it was some sort of genius way to achieve an economic end themselves. They were advised to do it because that was what century-old law—let me say that again: century-old law—recommended they do. They went off and set up a trust, and it is simply a piece of paper annually that their accountant presents to them that they sign to confirm to the ATO when they're making their submissions to the Tax Office and approving their audits. What they're going to find in the coming weeks and the coming months as these bills are passed through parliament—they're going to go and talk to their accountant, and their accountant is going to say, 'This is how much you owe for your tax return this year, but, by the way, next year you're going to have to pay double, triple, quadruple the increase in tax because of what the Albanese government is doing for you now.' Even worse, if you want to restructure your finances to minimise your exposure to the higher taxes the Albanese government is going to impose on you, you are going to experience $50,000 of adjustment costs—if you've got assets by the time you deal with the legals, the financials, the compliance.

If members of the Labor Party think that this is the end and this is the end of the debate, politely, this is the beginning of the debate. This is where the financial advisers, the accountants and the lawyers of Australia are going to tell the Labor Party members' constituents how much the Albanese government has betrayed the small businesses of this country. As they find out the cost and as they find out the consequences and as they shift structures, they're going to incur $50,000 bills. That's a massive deadweight cost on the economy simply to reorganise their finances and legal structures. Even worse than that, they're going to face a deadweight cost which could aggregate to as much as $13 billion across the economy. It's effectively the same as saying: 'We're just going to write off an entire year of economic growth. We're just going to write off a year of business activity.' No Australian is going to be better off after these tax changes. Not even Labor, when they come into this chamber, try to say that somehow small businesses are going to be better off as a consequence of these tax changes. They're not even trying to pretend. They're just after more revenue because they can't kick their spending addiction. They cannot kick their addiction to inflation and to higher interest rates, which are punishing Australians and more importantly increasing the cost of mortgages and which mean Australians go to the supermarket and pay more and get less.

If small businesses change their structures, that is just going to invoke a whole series of further steps. Only last Friday, I was in the federal electorate of Flinders with the wonderful member for Flinders. Many small businesses from the Mornington Peninsula, which is one of the great hubs of small-business activity across Australia—not quite as good as the Goldstein small businesses, but I do respect the fact that they are definitely my spiritual home small businesses. It's one of the places where my mother used to have a small business. I need to be clear.

When I met with those small businesses, particularly the accountants, the solicitors and the financial advisers, they said, 'This is the beginning of the end for a lot of small businesses because not only are you going to see changes in structures; it will immediately trigger a series of events.' Those are events like going back to their bank and asking for refinance because they'll be legally obliged to because their legal structure will change. So what are they going to do? They'll have their finance facilities adjusted. A lot of businesses that believe that they're going to be able to get the finance they're used to are going to suddenly find an environment of falling asset prices by the design of the Albanese government and the Carroll government, as well as the Allan government and the Andrews government in Victoria—falling asset prices by design, rising taxes and declines in profitability. The Labor government is selling them short. Their runway is going to reduce, and you're going to find that a lot of small businesses simply won't be able to operate.

Job done if you're a Labor government! Smash small business. Smash people's hopes and dreams. Destroy and torture those people who just backed themselves ahead. Do you know what happens then? People have to go and get a job in a unionised workforce, and then the Labor Party can manipulate and control people. That is what their end objective is—to manipulate and control Australians—but the problem is that it destroys the aspiration, the belief and hope Australians have in themselves. That is what is so terrifying about the insidious, nefarious agenda of the Albanese government. Their focus is on how they enlarge their power as part of their lust for power, but not only are they going to go to the bank and find out that they're not able to get the finance, they're going to go and see their insurance broker and find out their insurance policies are going to have to be reissued. Guess what we're seeing every time small business goes to an insurance broker? The cost goes up.

In fact, what small businesses are going to find is that the cost continues to rise on them because of the decisions of the Albanese government, and that's just legislation point 1, where small businesses are being betrayed by this government, all because they can't control their spending addiction. We also know that they've provided pathways allegedly to be able to solve some of these problems, but, of course, it's by nominating beneficiaries of small business trust into the future. The problem is then, of course, you can't add new beneficiaries, like if people have children. Imagine that—we're now going to tax births in this country. What sort of sick mind decides that should be the basis of legislation?

I see your smirk there, Deputy Speaker Scrymgour, I think it's just and wise, because only someone truly insane would design a piece of tax legislation which now actively taxes births, let alone what we've seen with the death taxes that this government has introduced and continues to impose across its federal budget. We have never seen anything like this. It is the arrogance and insanity of central planning, in the belief that, if we just give government all of our money and all of our resources, somehow we'll be a better country, but the old adage stays true that a government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have, and this government is absolutely determined to take everything it can from the small businesses of this country.

They claim farms are exempt. Farm income might be exempt, but contract shearing, mustering in the farm, stay and the power line rent all get taxed along the way. They've introduced rules that nobody can read. Twelve times the small business tax on trusts leaves the rules for the minister to later decide and determine the outcomes. Not one has been released, because, again, this treasurer, because you've got to trust them—50 times over, they wouldn't possibly tell you a lie. Fifty times over, we know full well that they did told the truth on their higher taxes before the election and have now set to pass them after the election, and now they're going to give themselves more discretionary power under this legislation so the minister and the Treasurer can make any decision they see fit. We pass this tax now. We trust the Treasurer with the rules later. I've got a tip for you: nobody believes this government anymore. Nobody trusts this government anymore because the Australian people have been betrayed by this government so many times before. We know that there's a huge cost to compliance as a consequence of this legislation, and, of course, it means that Australians will be left behind.

Then we have the TLAB No. 4, which targets start-ups. As I said before, this should really be renamed the member for Wentworth tax bill, because she has been the one who, every step, has made the case for higher taxes on business on the idea that you can turn around and the Labor Party is somehow miraculously going to give tax offsets elsewhere. Sorry for those in the big business community, the small-business community and innovative business community who have been deceived by the member for Wentworth, but it doesn't work that way. She has given a permission runway to members of the Labor Party to hike taxes on her own constituents and not given any tax offsets. This is and continues to be one of the great frustrations of debates around tax. Labor literally have no satiation, no end to their appetite, for higher tax revenue, because they see it as a pathway to empower them. TLAB 4, which deals specifically with innovative start start-ups and the like, is going to lead to a situation where a lot of people just aren't going to operate start-ups in this country. I've talked to so many people who have done well, innovators, people who are backing themselves to get ahead, and they consistently say, 'Why would I bother in Australia any more with capital gains tax increases, with the change to small business taxes on trusts and with how the government is basically targeting every innovative small business in this country?' They are turning around and saying, 'Why would I bother?' They're just going overseas or starting their business overseas in places like Queenstown in New Zealand, Dubai, Singapore or wherever they can get better tax arrangements.

What does that mean? It means that Australia does not have the pathway for growth in the future economy. Small businesses, particularly those in their first five years, are most likely to employ people proportionate to their size, most likely to be innovative and most likely to be productive. The Albanese government has turned around and said it wants to steal from the innovative, productive and employing side of the economy to feed their rapacious appetite for revenue today. They've created an environment of sovereign risk where they have smashed business confidence to back in the future growth of this country. With that, it isn't just capital that will disappear; talent will disappear. That will be a disaster for the future Australian economy.

The Treasurer continues to say that this is somehow going to be very pro start-ups. Well, I've never yet met anybody in the start-up community who has said: 'That last federal budget was great for us. We loved it. If only we could have more taxes to be able to back us in, if only we could have the government break more promises, because that's the pathway to our growth and success. If only we had more dishonesty from the government, we would end up being more confident about our future.' In case this is ever quoted back at me, I want to make it clear that I was being ironic, because not a single small business that I have run into, particularly innovative small businesses, believes in any way, shape or form that to be the case. What they are actually saying is the complete reverse—that they are being attacked and assaulted by this government every step of the way.

The Treasurer has continued to make the case that his budget is somehow beneficial, but the reality is small businesses, innovative businesses and the like continue to suffer under the consequences of this government's dishonesty. This federal budget and these pieces of legislation come down to a simple choice. It's a choice about the type of country we want to be. Do we want to be a nation that is built from families, communities and small business as the foundations for the strength of a nation? Or do we want to be a nation where the government controls people's lives and imposes conformity on them? No human society in history has been successful in respecting rights and freedoms, building a nation where hard work pays off and empowering people to be in control of their lives while imposing conformity from Canberra or a capital like that. Every society that has sustainably succeeded is one that has backed families, communities and small business and has backed them to thrive, not just to look at their feet but to look to the horizon with hope. Every society that has been successful and every economy that has met the material needs of its people and the spiritual needs of their journeys has always backed families, communities and small businesses as the foundations for their success—particularly small business. Every small business is an act of economic hope. It's an act where people back themselves because they believe that through their ingenuity, their own productivity and their hard work and effort that they will be able to get ahead.

The tragedy of these bills is that the government has come along and in the Prime Minister's very trademark way now said, 'No, that's mine.' He has come along and tried to take away that hope, that ambition and that dream of so many Australians that are the self-starters of our country. They don't just lift themselves up; they lift up the opportunity for every Australian because they are the ones who then go on and create the pathways for employment. They're often the place that a young kid gets their first job, gets trained and developed and has a pathway to get their first foot on the ladder of economic opportunity. They're the first people to go in and support our community—organisations like local sporting clubs, charitable groups, scouts groups and guide groups—because they believe that the health of their community is good for their business. They're the ones most likely to lead, disrupt, compete, dare and challenge the status quo for change and to build the technology and the capacity of our nation. That includes, by the way, the biotechnology and medicines that not just make us competitive but improve human health and human outcomes. At every point, the Albanese government are turning around and saying, to a better future—they want to take that back for themselves. They want to take that power, that energy, that ingenuity and that potential and give it to Canberra because they believe, deep down in their being of beings, that they have a better answer and know how you should live your life better than you do. They believe that they can provide better economic opportunities for you if you just empower them. They believe that they can provide better mutual support to individual citizens than families. They believe that, if they impose their will from Canberra, there will be a better outcome for small businesses than backing small businesses in to empower them.

We've made it very clear, every step of the way, that we plan to repeal all of the government's taxes that they introduced in this federal budget, which they never had the courage to take to the Australian people. Let us never forget that. Every single member of the Labor Party went to an election and said they would not introduce these taxes. More importantly, they lacked the courage to go to voters and tell them that they were going to introduce these taxes. Even worse than that, every member of the Labor Party betrayed the Australian community when they then went and followed this Prime Minister and this Treasurer, like lemmings, off a political cliff and decided that they were going to back in these taxes.

I cannot believe that, in a nation that so badly needs more trust, more honesty and more courage, we have a government as dishonest, as spineless and as distrusting as this government—the Albanese government. This is not just the way forward. It is not just the way forward for the Labor Party, certainly not the Labor Party, and the inheritance they receive. It is a betrayal of the Australian community and what they went to the ballot box and cast their vote for. Now we're left with the consequences.

What we can say is that there is hope on the horizon, because this government will end. Their higher taxes that no-one voted for will end. There will be a better future, because some of us in this parliament understand that the pathway to build Australia's success is by backing the Australian people—backing their ingenuity, backing their sacrifice, backing their hard work, backing their innovation capacity and backing them—to make sure that they build the foundations of a better future for all of us. The coalition understands that when we repeal these taxes we will be backing in the small businesses of this country, not just small businesses that exist today but the glint of hope and opportunity that rests in the eye of the next generation of Australians who dare to dream, who dare to look to the horizon with hope and a belief in themselves that they can do great things. That's the type of citizen I want for this country.

I do not want the soft bigotry of low expectations that the Albanese government oversees. I want to see a country where, no matter who you are or where you come from, you can build a better future for yourself, lift the standards for yourself, lift your economic welfare and lift your whole community with you. That's what we back and that's what we believe. We do not believe in the government being the solution to all problems. We want the government out of people's way. The role of government is to make sure that it respects its citizens, backs them in and understands that it is to create an empowering and enabling framework for people to go out and live their best lives.

It's our chance and our moment to make sure that we build a better Australia for every Australian. That is not what is being done in these laws being put before this parliament. Instead, what we see is a government that is so addicted to spending that its only solution is to grab its very large hand and shove it in the pockets of Australians, of whom it is jealous and resentful because they have managed to back themselves into success. Even worse than that, the jealousy and resentment from the Albanese government then tries and punish and humiliate people who want to back themselves in and have a better future. This sick fantasy of the Albanese government, and the focus it brings to this parliament, is not one that breeds the type of nation we want. It is not one that builds a better future for Australia, and it is not one that enables Australians to live out their best lives.

Now is our critical moment. At the next election, these taxes, and, of course, the assault on small business, will be on the ballot paper. I look forward to a Taylor-led Liberal government that is going to repeal these taxes and build a better future for all of us.