Anthony Albanese slams ‘nonsense’ capital gains tax lie claims, blames critics ‘self-interest’

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says it is “nonsense” that he has lied to voters as he claims self-interest is driving critics of the Government’s planned capital gains tax exchange.

It comes just days after Mr Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers unveiled several changes to the proposed CGT reform, including CGT exemptions for small businesses with an annual turnover of up to $10 million.

Speaking on Sky News’ Sunday Agenda, Mr Albanese rejected claims the $10m threshold was a “tax on aspirations”, instead suggesting it “encourages aspirations”.

“The aspiration is the same as for every worker to aspire to more income, to aspire to be better off in life, and what we’re doing is better aligning income from work with income from assets,” he said.

“When most people go into small business as well, they don’t go in so they can start a small business today and sell it tomorrow.

“They’re in it to build a future, and many small businesses, of course, over a period of time, are inter-generational, that’s part of the aspiration in Australia as well.

“So this is removing an anomaly, really, that was there that saw from 1999 what we saw was additional investment funnelled into housing that’s had a real impact on property that has meant that young Australians are simply priced out of the housing.”

He reiterated the CGT and negative gearing changes, which will be major talking point in the halls of Parliament this week, will amount to giving more young Australians to have a foot in the housing market.

“That is what this change is about: by making sure that when it comes to the negative gearing changes, changing it so that rather than seeing all of the investment going into property, there will be people looking towards investment in other areas of growth,” he said.

But Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said that CGT was “failing Australians”, calling the Government’s backdown on carve-outs “half-arsed” and slamming Labor for being out of touch with small businesses.

“What’s clear is that these taxes are going to hurt aspiration in this country,” he told Sky News’ Sunday Agenda.

“They are an assault on aspiration, on ambition, on investment, on risk-taking, on growth, on rising standards of living, on all the things that we know drive prosperity.

“What we have is a Labor Government that doesn’t understand small business, doesn’t understand business at all, because most of them have never worked in it.

“This is abject failure, and they are layering failure upon failure, and now we see a half-arsed carve-out from this Government that is an admission of failure.”

CGT is set to dominate the political agenda this week, with just eight sitting days remaining until Parliament breaks for its winter recess.

As is the inroads being made by One Nation, with revelations on Sunday that Liberal Party members in NSW have defected to Pauline Hanson’s party.

Just last week, national polling revealed Ms Hanson had also overtaken Mr Albanese as the country’s preferred prime minister.

“They want a better Liberal Party and particularly in New South Wales we have seen a number of members of the party frustrated at the lack of democracy in the party,” Mr Taylor said of Liberal supporters.

“I’ve been fighting to change that for many, many years and I will continue to, and I want those people to stay.”

But Mr Taylor said the Liberal Party had seen emerging interest from small business owners, and commended past PM Tony Abbott for his success as the party’s federal president in “energising the membership (and) retaining those who are frustrated.”

“I can say that we have seen a strong uptake of interest in becoming members of the Liberal Party from small business people who are incredibly frustrated right now, who are under attack from a Labor Government — and that’s good news,” he said.

“Bringing new people in, that will be a focus for us ... that means we have to have a credible plan, a credible team, and we have to continue to fight for this country, which is under assault under this government.”

Mr Albanese also took aim at One Nation, saying it pretended to “stand for battlers” whilst opposing initiatives like minimum wage increases and childcare support.

“They’ve opposed our support and expansion and strengthening of Medicare,” he said.

“They’ve opposed free TAFE to give Australians the skills that they need . . . you can’t say we want to stop migration but not want to up-skill Australians to get Australians the skills to fill the jobs, so the industry can continue to thrive.”