Allegra Spender
Wentworth · Independent · Australia
“Estimates are between 0.5 per cent and two per cent of all abortions over 20 weeks. They are generally because of late diagnosed anomalies, genetic syndromes or severe fetal growth problems.”
“The bill is useful, it is technical, it's incremental, it has useful schedules, it has 'tell us once', it has streamlining and it has technical fixes. These are all good things, and I do not underestimate the effort that goes into getting useful changes like this.”
“Across Australia, we're seeing rising threats to women's access to abortion care. We see it in bills in state parliaments. We see it in the way some politicians talk about this issue, using misinformation and scare tactics to drive divisions, tools straight out of the Trump playbook.”
“They're saying they're waiting up to 18 months for the ATO to make a decision on how an investment would be treated, so the foreign capital just goes away. We need to change the culture here, and this is why—while I support this government's actions in this space—I urge the government to go further. This isn't about bad people.”
“I've seen firsthand how drone technology is at the forefront of some of these problems because government is slow to make decisions. There's no accountability from many government departments in terms of the speed of their decision-making.”
“I support the government's work on the fund, but I think it's currently around one tenth the size of the original 1990s National Competition Fund. If we expect that to move the dial, as it did back in the 1990s, we are going to have to put more firepower behind it.”
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“Two specialists with similar qualifications, experience and expertise can charge very different fees. There are often valid reasons for that, but it is not fair that patients making decisions about their health care don't have access to that information. Health care is one of the most important decisions a person will make, yet, unlike almost every other part of our economy, we do not equip consumers with the tools to compare price, understand value and make informed choices. We know the consequences of that. In 2024-25, around 8.6 per cent of Australians, more than 800,000 people, delayed or missed specialist care because of cost. That is not just a statistic; that is people putting off essential care because they do not know how much it will cost them. This bill begins to change that. Now to what this bill does.”
“Right now, a patient will often go to their GP, receive a referral to a particular specialist and simply assume that it is appropriate or the only option, but what they are not told—and often can't easily find out—is how that specialist's fees compare to others. Right now, a patient will often go to their GP, receive a referral to a particular specialist and simply assume that it is appropriate or the only option, but what they are not told—and often can't easily find out—is how that specialist's fees compare to others. Many patients feel uncomfortable raising costs with their GP, even where there is strong trust. They may hesitate to speak openly about their financial situation or worry that asking about fees could be questioning a referral to a high-quality specialist.”
“But increasingly I hear from constituents that while care is available from specialists it's not always accessible, because costs are unclear, unpredictable and sometimes unaffordable. In a cost-of-living crisis, this matters to people. It can be the difference between accessing care and choosing not to book an appointment, or it can have a tangible impact on daily decisions about spending and family accounting. This matters. While for some a referral to a specialist may be urgent, for others it may be preventive. If the price is prohibitive, this may discourage patients from accessing the preventive care tests and treatment they may need. This can have significant impacts on their health months, years or decades down the line. This is one of the core problems this bill seeks to address.”
“It works alongside Medicare to give people greater choice, to relieve pressure on the public system and to ensure that we can sustain a mixed model of care into the future. When it is working well, it supports timely access to treatment, greater flexibility and choice for patients, and better outcomes across the system as a whole. But, for that to remain true, Australians need to have confidence in it—confidence that it is transparent, that it offers real value and that it is supporting, not undermining, the broader healthcare system. On specialists, I'm delighted that in Wentworth we have some of the best specialists and healthcare providers in the country.”
“I rise to support the Health Legislation Amendment (Improving Choice and Transparency for Private Health Consumers) Bill 2026. One of the things Australians are most proud of is our healthcare system. We value a system that ensures everyone can access the care they need through Medicare, through bulk-billing and through a network of high-quality public hospitals delivering world-class treatment. But Australia has many other aspects to its incredible Medicare system, and this bill deals with two that are of critical importance—the private health insurance part of the healthcare system, and our specialists. Private health insurance is a crucial part of our system and of our balance.”
“The financial advice profession is in such a decline that it is becoming prohibitively expensive to obtain financial advice, and those who need it are least able to afford it. We need to be doing all that we can to bring more financial advisers into the system, having lost thousands of them in the last few years. So I welcome any legislation that provides appropriate safeguards but that makes it easier and reduces some of the duplicate red tape for financial advisers. So thank you to the government and the ministers for action on these bills, and I commend this bill to the House.”
“This is a commonsense change. This issue was actually raised with me at a pop-up office in Kings Cross by a constituent who was concerned last year with the uncertainty around this legislation and the need for action to be taken here, so I welcome the government's action on this. I'm really proud to have been advocating really loudly and proudly on this issue, and I think that this is an appropriate resolution. Finally, schedule 4 of the bill follows through on the government's commitment to scrap the proposed phase 2 of the better advice reforms from 2021, which would make advisers undertake duplicated licensing arrangements every year, set to commence in July 2026.”
“I welcome this bill. I support this bill, and I would also say that parliament needs to work at a greater speed than we currently do when issues are raised with us over a long period of time. I also recognise the Council of Australian Life Insurance, CALI, for getting behind some of these changes. It is really important that the life insurance industry is working with these changes as opposed to trying to fight them. The additional component of the bill that I'd like to talk to in particular is the market makers bill. Some sensible changes, particularly the foreign financial services provider legislation in schedule 2, will provide certain exemptions to foreign financial service providers from licensing requirements under the Corporations Act, including for market makers and providers under comparable regimes.”
“In 2003, the Australian Law Reform Commission first recommended that the life insurance industry needed safeguards around the use of genetic testing—that is, 23 years ago. In 2018, a joint parliamentary inquiry into the life insurance industry recommended a moratorium on the use of genetic testing results in life insurance. In 2019, the life insurance industry introduced a partial industry-led moratorium to set policy limits. While I commend the industry for taking the first step, it's overdue that Australia committed to the change. I wrote to the Assistant Treasurer about this issue back in 2023 and again in 2025, when I was contacted by members of my community and also by others, particularly Dr Jane Tiller from Monash University, who has been a leading light in this area. I think the point is that we have come to the right conclusion.”
“To start on life insurance, schedule 1 of this bill is a long overdue outcome of Australians seeking preventive health care. Preventive health care is the future of health in Australia, and we need to be encouraging more, not fewer, people seeking potentially life-saving genetic testing. They should not have to avoid this sort of testing based on the concern that the information they obtain could potentially be used against them by insurers who would seek to exclude people from insurance products. This bill would introduce formal protection against life insurers accessing and using genetic information for determining life insurance product eligibility and premiums. This is very welcome and this is so important. But to be honest, we have been slow to act on this.”
“I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Genetic Testing Protections in Life Insurance and Other Measures) Bill 2025 and express my support for this bill. I commend the Assistant Treasurer for bringing forward this bill. It legislates important changes, two of which I've been advocating for some time. This bill includes four key provisions. Firstly, schedule 1 limits the use of genetic testing by life insurers. Schedule 2 creates licensing exemptions for foreign financial institutions, including international market makers. Schedule 3 standardises the legislative framework for Australia's involvement with multilateral development banks and schedule 4 removes the requirement for stage 2 registration of the better advice act.”
“This question is for the Treasurer. The war in the Middle East is driving gas price spikes, which is great for resource company revenue, but Australians are hurting. This boosted revenue is not a reward for wise investment decisions. It is a by-product of an unexpected war. Will you impose a windfall tax, as other nations did in 2022, to ensure Australians get a fair share of this wartime windfall from their natural resources?”
“That capital needs to be unlocked now to back innovation. There are the regulatory responses from the government. They have acknowledged there is slowness; it just has to move faster. I'll give you an example. I have a drone company in my electorate. They compete with helicopters, because they do unmanned drones and helicopters are the alternative. They can't actually bid on things at the moment, because it is so slow to get an answer from CASA, the regulator, in terms of whether or not they can fly. That is unacceptable. Finally, we need to bring in the skilled labour in AI, those who are really talented. We can grow our own talent and bring it in as well when we need it. The visa processing on skilled labour is far too slow. These are some of the things that the government needs to do now to help us manage AI.”
“That means we need to make sure that AI is helping us in health care, in education, in the areas where it can actually really transform the daily lives of Australians for the better. Those benefits need to be captured. We also need to back Australian companies in this AI revolution. We need to make sure that Australia benefits too, and that means starting with government procurement. Government procurement should be procuring from innovative companies and leading on AI so that AI systems and AI companies build up their capabilities here in Australia and then sell to the world. We need to get capital unlocked for the companies that will benefit. The government has started to work on Your Future, Your Super and RG 97, which, really, stop superannuation capital investing in innovation. It needs to go faster on this.”
“So far, in question time, we've had four questions on AI this parliamentary term—three of those from the crossbench, one from Labor, none from the opposition. That is a challenge, because this is going to transform this country. We need to be talking about it here. The government has released an AI strategy. I think that's great. It took them three years. That's too long, and that strategy—which I think is solid—doesn't have KPIs, and it doesn't have timelines. We need those because this is really going to matter. This is going to transform our economy. There are five things I think that I would like to see the government move much faster on right now, and this is both for my community and for the country. Firstly, we need to make sure the benefits are shared.”
“I'm here to talk about AI, particularly how it's going to affect not only Wentworth but, actually, our country. AI is a huge opportunity, but it is going to be disruptive, and I do believe some of this disruption is going to be felt in my electorate. Many people in my area work in the knowledge economy, and we know that that is going to be particularly affected by AI. At the same time, we have some of the greatest tech entrepreneurs and venture capital in the country as well. So I think it is going to be a time of great change, and it's up to us in this parliament and in this country to seize the opportunities and manage the downsides and risks. I want to raise the issue that I have in the parliament, which is that we are not talking about AI.”
“In particular, I speak to the renters and apartment dwellers in Wentworth—60 per cent of my community live in apartments and 40 per cent rent. Those are big numbers. Many of them are passionate about the climate transition and the need to clean our energy grid, but do not have the tools to be able to do so. I appreciate the government has introduced things like the three hours of clean energy in the day, but the challenge is that many apartment dwellers and renters do not have the smart-meters to take advantage of these types of policies, and so it will not actually benefit them. Those are the ones that we need to support, because we need to make sure that all Australian households thrive and can access clean and cheaper energy through this transition.”
“Early gas production relied upon foreign capital and expertise. When Japan's nuclear industry shut down in the 2010s, it was Australian gas that helped keep the lights on. We have resources to spare, just as our trade partners do. We are stronger and safer because of these interdependencies, but we must also be clear: myopic foreign profit cannot come before Australian households or Australian industry, and it must not come before our long-term energy security. We have weathered too many global energy shocks. We have the benefit of hindsight. Our policies should reflect that hard-won wisdom. Finally, we must continue to focus more on those parts of our community that are currently not well-supported through this energy transition.”
“This is not only about climate; it is about energy security and the cost of living. Australia imports most of its liquid fuels, leaving us exposed to global shocks. We could reopen refineries and lock ourselves further into the fuels of the past, or we can accelerate our transition to cleaner, cheaper domestic fuels. An electric vehicle can be fuelled by 100 per cent Australian energy, and that energy is becoming cleaner every day. Road transport can and must be electrified, yet nine out of 10 of every car sold in Australia extends our dependence on imported fuels. We need policies that drive transport electrification across the country, including in regional areas for those living in apartments and in trucking. This is not about isolationism. Australia's energy story has always been one of partnership.”
“First, on cost: we cannot wait until 2027 for domestic gas reservation to ensure Australian households and businesses using Australian gas are not forced to pay volatile international prices. Second, on benefit: when global conflicts drive extra extraordinary spikes in export revenues, Australians should share in that benefit. It is urgent that we implement a windfall tax on war-driven, supernormal revenues, as the EU and UK did in 2022. Already there are calls on government for cost-of-living relief, for example by slashing fuel excise or reintroducing electricity rebates. Such calls cannot be answered without a stronger budget position. Without a windfall tax, energy price relief would in effect be a transfer payment from government to multinationals. Third, we must accelerate the electrification of our economy.”
“Since then, despite tripling of production, domestic prices have also roughly tripled. Supply has grown, but prices have tripled as well. That is not the outcome of scarcity. It is the result of policy decisions that linked Australian gas to volatile international markets. Those markets are shaped by forces far beyond our control: the war in Ukraine, the US fracking boom, OPEC supply decisions, rising demand across South-East Asia, and now the conflict in the Middle East. Such volatility can be a windfall for exporters, many of which are foreign owned. But for Australian households and businesses it has meant painful price shocks and ongoing uncertainty. The current geopolitical crisis has made three things clear.”
“Australia is an energy superpower. Few countries are as richly endowed with energy resources as we are, both those of the past and those of the future. Our electricity grid, while only 50 per cent renewable, is powered by 100 per cent Australian fuels. The coal, wind, gas and sunshine that generate our electricity are domestic. Unlike many countries, we do not rely on imported fuels to keep our lights on, although we do to keep our cars running. So we start from a position of enormous strength. But, as was said at Climate Action Week in Sydney, advantage matters only if we act. The fact that we are even having a conversation about energy insecurity in a country with Australia's resources is in many ways a failure of policy. When the east coast began exporting LNG, we did so without putting in place a domestic gas reservation scheme.”
“Thank you very much for the response from the government on this. Really, my question to the government is: did you consider options—because it isn't an unreasonable request. I support the principle of where the government is going on this, and I support the legislation. But, if you take someone's tax rate from 15 per cent to 40 per cent and they cannot touch that money perhaps for a decade or more, it's not unreasonable to ask: in the legislation, could you have looked for ways to give options, at least, to the people who are affected by this?”
“I think it's not an unreasonable request that, if your money is locked up for perhaps 10 or 20 years and the rules for it substantially change, you have a chance to remove that money and deploy it as you wish elsewhere.”
“That is a material change in the taxation arrangements of superannuation with these high balances. I think that it is appropriate in that case to offer options for removing this. I know that the government has in previous conversations with the Assistant Treasurer noted that there may be constitutional issues in relation to pensions. My question to the government then would be: were there any other options considered for people who might be in their 30s, their 40s or their 50s who would like to take this money out of super because they no longer see the benefit of having it in that arrangement? Were other options that would have been appropriate considered in the legislation?”
“However, in the current piece of legislation, there are people with high balances who are under 60, so they cannot remove their super from their current accounts. I think that is of concern. The great challenge of changing super laws is that the money is locked up. You can't touch it unless you're at least over 60 and retired. If you made decisions based on previous conditions in terms of a tax statement and then it is changed materially, I think it is fair to give people the chance to say: 'I wouldn't have made that decision. I'd like to now withdraw these funds.' It doesn't affect a lot of people, but I think, on principle, giving people that choice is important. I do think it's worth noting that the government has doubled the tax rate, and in some cases it has gone from 15 per cent to 40 per cent.”
“I move: (1) Schedule 1, item 14, page 8 (after line 19), after section 296-25, insert: 296-26 Exemption — one-off amnesty If your superannuation balance for the 2026-27 income year exceeds the *large superannuation balance threshold and you are in the accumulation phase, you may make a one-off withdrawal from the account up to the *large superannuation balance threshold. I want to acknowledge the government's piece of legislation, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Building a Stronger and Fairer Super System) Bill 2026, which I support. I particularly want to acknowledge the changes to the legislation which I think have made it a very positive piece of legislation that is appropriately addressing intergenerational inequity at the same time as being, on balance, fair to existing super holders.”
“They deserve a climate policy framework that is coherent, economically disciplined and consistent with our international obligations, because the pathway matters. As we look to bridge the gap between the projections and the 2035 target, these new policies do need to be cost effective. The safeguard mechanism review will need to consider how to best cover a greater portion of emissions without strangling businesses with red tape, and barriers to investment need to be addressed to accelerate the renewables rollout and lower power bills. The transition to net zero is one of the largest economic transformations Australia will undertake this century. If we do it well, it will make us more prosperous, more competitive and more resilient.”
“What they want to know is that it is being done sensibly, fairly and at the least cost, and at the moment this story is incomplete. We celebrate progress on domestic emissions while expanding the export of fuels that drive global emissions. We promise a least-cost transition while failing to measure the cost of the policies delivering it. If we are serious about climate action, as I know the minister is, then our policies must match our ambition. That includes being transparent about the cost of our policies, disciplined about pursuing the least-cost pathway and honest about the full climate impact of our decisions, including the emissions embedded in what we export. Australians are already doing their bit, installing solar, electrifying homes, buying more efficient vehicles and adjusting their lives in meaningful ways.”
“Recent decisions to expand or extend projects suggest one does not exist. Just this week, the NSW government approved an extension for a thermal coalmine, allowing another 36 million tonnes of coal to be extracted, roughly equivalent to one-fifth of Australia's annual domestic emissions when burnt. This is an affront to Australians making concerted efforts to reduce their own carbon footprint. The government has also introduced mandatory climate disclosures, requiring businesses to report emissions across their entire value chain, yet when it comes to the minister's own scope 3 emissions, which the government is asking businesses to report on—the emissions from the fossil fuels we export—apparently they cannot be reliably reported. Australians understand that the transition to net zero is necessary.”
“That progress matters, but domestic emissions pale in comparison to those we export in the form of fossil fuels. Australia's contribution to global emissions—more than triple our domestic emissions—continues to rise. We will not be shielded from the consequences of those emissions. They will be felt here, in more frequent and catastrophic floods, fires and droughts, in increasing insurance premiums, in more days spent indoors escaping the heat and in the decimation of the Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo Reef. At COP30, Australia joined the Belem Declaration on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels. That was important, but, despite the minister leading preparations for the next COP in Turkiye, we are far away from leading the transition. If there is a plan to phase out coal, I have not seen it.”
“The Solar Sharer scheme was pitched as a mechanism to share the benefits, but it relies on smart metres not due to be rolled out until 2030. Many have also questioned whether households, particularly those who can't readily shift their usage, could end up paying more overall. There is another issue that the statement largely avoids: Australia's exports. It mentioned coal exports just once, in the context of South Korea's COP commitments affecting Australia's export opportunities. My community sees this inconsistency. They see ministers pulling in different directions, spending money on decarbonisation while expanding fossil fuel supply. Someone said this week that the investors regard the Future Gas Strategy as the government's most significant climate policy. Domestic emissions are now 29 per cent below 2005 levels.”
“At present we do not know the cost of emissions reductions the government is purchasing through subsidies, and it does concern me that many Australians cannot access these incentives. The second piece I'd like to talk about is shared benefits. The two cornerstone programs—the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme and the Cheaper Home Battery Program—are largely available only to homeowners, especially those with green title. This is the same cohort already benefiting from additional tax settings. Similarly, the EV discount provides the greatest benefit to high-income earners purchasing expensive vehicles through employer-provided novated leases. Renters, apartment dwellers and many Australians under cost-of-living pressure struggle to see how the transition is working for them.”
“But we also must be willing to pull back when that is no longer needed and redirect funds to the least-cost pathway. If we are going to make this transition at its lowest cost, we must be disciplined about where and when we procure emissions reductions, and the pathway—not the politics—matters. An economy-wide carbon price or an expanded safeguard mechanism would provide the market structure to deliver this least-cost transition. It would replace the government's captain's calls with a predictable, pro-business framework. At the very least, the government should transparently cost its actual climate policies, not just model a theoretical trajectory. I strongly support the transition to net zero and the urgency of getting there, but it must be done with the least cost and in a way that shares the benefit.”
“Neither the Parliamentary Library or the Parliamentary Budget Office can advise me or my office on the cost per tonne of abatement of the government's policy suite. This is important. We need this information, particularly if we're not going to have an economy-wide climate target. The one estimate the Parliamentary Library could locate was for the electric vehicles novated fringe benefit lease tax exemption, the so-called EV discount. It is estimated to cost over $900 per tonne of abatement, yet Treasury's least-cost pathway assumes that the highest marginal abatement cost to 2030 will be $67 per tonne. It suggests government policy has wandered away from the least-cost pathway. I understand that there are reasons why you would adopt a non-least-cost pathway initially: to encourage a technology into a degree of maturity.”
“Firstly, on the least-cost pathway, Treasury estimates that a least-cost pathway to net zero would make Australia $1 trillion richer by 2050, compared with a disorderly transition. Real wages could be four per cent higher if we were to get the transition right, so how we decarbonise matters. But, when I look across the state of the policies, I'm not convinced we are on the least-cost path. There are 430 climate related policies in government, as identified by the Climate Change Authority. The Productivity Commission, however, identified that we should have greater transparency and reporting on the cost effectiveness of emissions reductions against this. This transparency is much overdue.”
“I rise to speak on the Annual Climate Change Statement 2025 tabled by the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. I welcome this fourth annual report. I commend the department for comprehensive work and the government for its commitment to targets and reporting. The statement is an important stocktake of progress. This year it shows emissions 29 per cent lower than 2005, following the largest annual drop outside the pandemic. It shows renewables are working, with electricity emissions falling 3.3 per cent. It shows the safeguard mechanism beginning to deliver reductions after a first year of reform, and it reminds us there is still much work that needs to be done, if we are to meet our 2035 targets. There are a number of issues I would like to speak about.”
“My question is to the Treasurer. AI is already having a significant impact on the country and is rapidly evolving. My community is concerned that the government does have enough urgency in addressing AI, particularly because it took three years to develop an AI strategy. How are you thinking about the impact of AI on the economy, and how will the budget urgently address both capturing the upside opportunities and managing the downside risks?”
“I have no problems with it as a piece of legislation. But the country expects us to be doing much more on issues that matter to them. The government's legislative agenda is absolutely surprisingly light, given the challenges facing our country. The question for the government is: is this the ambition that you should be approaching, given you have a supermajority in the House and you have two different and achievable pathways through the Senate? Surely there is more that the government can do with its legislative agenda than this.”
“Where's that legislation? They have taken steps forward on things like the 'tell us once' policy, but there is much, much more work to do. This is the sort of legislation I think people expect us to be dealing with in the parliament. What about the whistleblower protections—they're long overdue—or gambling reform, or protections for LGBTQ+ students and teachers so that they can't be fired or expelled because of who they love, because of getting divorced or because of having a child out of wedlock? What about forcing companies to allow you to opt out of social media algorithms, or dealing with the CFMEU and the impact that has had on government procurement, with $15 billion worth of expected impact in Victoria, of which probably $2 billion is federal money? That really is the question here. I respect this piece of legislation.”
“I would genuinely hope that this sort of bill would come in a big omnibus bill of uncontentious pieces of legislation that we could push through parliament, so we can focus on more important things, but in this case it hasn't. This is the question I ask the government in relation to this: where is the ambition and how is it reflected in the legislative agenda? Every week we have a crossbench briefing from the government on legislation for the coming weeks. They cancelled it tonight because there was only one bill to bring forward and it was a very minimal one. Again, we're going to have sat six out of nine weeks. Where is the legislative agenda that really justifies this? There is important work to be done. For instance, the government has indicated—very rightly, I think—that there's a significant deregulation agenda that is required.”
“The question I have for the government is: at a time when inflation is high, when productivity is in the doldrums, when house prices mean young people are struggling to get into the housing market and achieve the same outcomes as their parents, when social cohesion is under pressure, when trust in government is at a low ebb and when Australia's clean energy transition is happening more slowly than we would like, is this legislation really the best use of our parliamentary time? Is tweaking the employment contracts of four government appointed officials really an issue at the top of the government's precious parliamentary agenda?”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Commonwealth Entities Legislation Amendment Bill 2026. This legislation, I believe, is perfectly unobjectionable. It brings the statutory office holders who lead four Commonwealth agencies into line with our other government organisations by reducing their maximum term of appointment from seven to five years and by adding grounds for suspension or termination of office holders similar to what exists for other positions.”
“So I do support the bill, but I think the government needs to link any tax increases to tax reductions. I forgive the government in this case because they did announce a tax cut for the lowest tax level before the election, so I'm letting them balance this one out. I'm giving credit for that. But I think any credits after that should be returned to the people as tax concessions on working because that's where they are really needed.”
“Honestly, it is important that government spending is pulled back over time, because I think that that level of growth and spending is definitely unsustainable. These are the core reasons why I think it is really important that the government uses any sort of money that is raised to give back to Australians who are struggling, particularly younger people who really feel like they can't get ahead. The numbers bear them out. They can't get ahead. They're spending less on non-essentials than previous generations did. They're not building wealth like they used to. They are not meeting the milestone of buying a house like they used to. They're not having kids like they used to. We know that money and economic circumstances are playing into this.”
“The government, if it is contemplating any more tax changes in the budget, should keep the covenant with the Australian people that, for any additional tax that it raises, it should give it back in income tax concessions. It's not only important on principle; it is important because younger working people are really hurting right now. They are really struggling with the cost of living. Tax concessions is a way that you can actually make a real difference to people's lives, and in a quick way. It is important because government spending has grown at a rate that I think most Australians have some concerns about. It was just over 24 per cent when the government came into power. It is now at 26.9 per cent. That is a significant growth in government spending.”
“There is a distrust around government spending—that it isn't as effective as it could be and that government doesn't always use every single dollar as well and as thoughtfully as we do in our homes. Again, I'll comment on the words of the previous speaker, the member for Kingsford Smith, who I have enormous respect for. He said something like 'it's not many people whose money it is and so it doesn't really matter'. I don't want to verbal him, but I want to acknowledge that it's not the government's money that they're touching. It's somebody else's money, so we need to show respect. We need to make a strong case if we are going to make changes to the money that people have and those tax arrangements. I think that is really important.”
“The only thing I would say further is that what I do want to see, and what I think this government should be doing, is linking any changes—any reductions in tax concessions—to meaningful reductions in income taxes for working-age people so that it's not just more money in the government coffers. I think this is really important. When you listen to Australians talk about tax—and we're talking about tax, which is a really positive move—there is a great deal of concern that tax increases, and this is a tax increase, just go to government coffers and that governments can sometimes spend without as much oversight as you would like and sometimes, frankly, on things that are pretty political as opposed to what best benefits the country.”
“That is why I strongly opposed that part of the policy. I want to recognise that it's not easy to change your mind publicly and that the Treasurer changed his mind publicly, restructured the package, indexed the thresholds and removed unrealised gains. I think that this is a much better policy and package for it. I will give the Treasurer enormous credit for being able to do that, because I'm sure it wasn't easy. I'm sure it wasn't necessarily what he wanted to do. But he listened to feedback. I think that is actually what people expect from us here in the parliament. That's really where I want to leave my comments.”
“And I will say that if the government had been taxing unrealised gains—as it had initially intended to do—I wouldn't have supported this bill, even though I do support changing tax concessions. I made this point in various forms to the Treasurer and to others and played a significant role, I think, in working with others so the previous form of the bill did not go ahead in the last parliament. When I talk to my community, people do steadfastly support pulling back superannuation concessions, particularly when they can support people with lower balances to build more effective super. But the taxation of unrealised gains is bad policy. It is inappropriate and would certainly have unintended consequences, particularly in the innovation sector—in the startup sector—as well as for other groups.”