Latest news with #JamesPaterson
Perth Now
3 days ago
- Business
- Perth Now
Albo's impossible choice on super tax
Anthony Albanese has indicated that he will work with the Coalition to pass Labor's proposed tax to hit super balances over $3m with a 30 per cent tax. Speaking from Perth on Tuesday, the Prime Minister conceded that Labor doesn't have 'majority in the Senate' and said 'we obviously work with different parties'. 'If the signal from the Coalition is across the board – I'm not talking specifically here – that they will be more constructive and not just be part of a no-alition with the Greens Party, then that would be welcome,' he said. 'I think people in the last term of parliament saw a Coalition that was just committed to blocking everything – housing investment, support for further investment in education,' he continued, adding that he hoped the Coalition will support Labor's push to cut all HELP debts by 20 per cent. Anthony Albanese said he would work with 'different parties' in order to pass Labor's proposed super tax. NewsWire/Philip Gostelow Credit: Supplied While Labor has continued to face questions over its plans to double earning tax on superannuation balances over $3m, the Greens have given the policy in-principle support. This would negate the need for Labor to seek bipartisan support in the Senate. However the minor party has argued for the threshold to be lowered to $2m, with indexation requirements that would result in the threshold increasing over time. Although the Coalition has indicated that it is open for negotiations, this is contingent on the inclusion of indexation provisions, and excluding the tax on unrealised gains, like property. James Paterson said the Treasurer was in hiding. Jason Edwards / NewsWire Credit: News Corp Australia On Monday, Coalition finance spokesman James Paterson accused Jim Chalmers of being 'in hiding' due to the controversy over the super tax. Senator Paterson said the Coalition was 'very proud to oppose it because we think it is bad tax law'. 'He's barely been seen or heard from since the election. He's letting other ministers like Amanda Rishworth front the Sunday shows to try to explain his complicated, confused, and contradictory policy,' he said. Senator Paterson has also This is due to carveouts for people on defined benefit pensions, who won't have to pay the tax until after they retire, while people with normal super funds and self-managed funds will be liable during their working years. This includes long-serving politicians who entered parliament before 2004, and include Mr Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Sussan Ley. 'I think he (the Treasurer) should front up today and explain the rationale for this dodgy exemption that he's given his boss and whether or not Anthony Albanese participated in the decision to grant that exemption.'
Sky News AU
4 days ago
- Business
- Sky News AU
Ditch unrealised gains tax, index threshold for Coalition to consider bipartisan support on super tax, shadow treasurer Ted O'Brien and James Paterson declare
Two leading Coalition ministers have called on Labor to scrap taxing unrealised gains and index the threshold in its controversial superannuation proposal if the opposition is to consider bipartisan support for the plan. The Albanese government's proposal to double the tax rate to 30 per cent on funds in super accounts above $3 million has drawn backlash over plans to hit unrealised gains and maintain the threshold over time despite inflation pushing more Aussies into the higher bracket. It has sparked fears for small business owners, farmers who hold properties in their self-managed super funds, and startup investors, who use SMSF's as an investment vehicle. The groups are are particularly concerned about paying tax on paper gains they have not realised. Newly appointed shadow finance minister James Paterson said the two controversial components of the bill were core reasons why the Coalition continues to oppose it. 'We're going to fight this every step in the way because we think it's wrong in principle,' Mr Paterson said on Sky News' AM Agenda. 'Unless the government was willing to walk away from the two key principles in this bill, which is taxing unrealised gains and failing to index the threshold, then there's no conceivable world in which we could support it. 'We're very proud to oppose it because we think it is bad tax law.' It follows shadow treasurer Ted O'Brien telling The Australian the opposition is willing to engage with Labor on the proposed super changes if the government ditches the two controversial elements. 'We will be constructive, but (Treasurer) Jim Chalmers has to be prepared to change his direction on this,' Mr O'Brien said. 'What is being put forward really does breach a red line in taxing unrealised capital gains. 'But if Jim Chalmers is prepared to be humble for a moment and realise he's made a mistake and wishes to engage with me, my door is open.' The Coalition's call for negotiation on the super tax comes as Labor needs only the Greens' support in the senate to legislate the change. The Greens expressed support for taxing unrealised gains but urged Labor to lower the threshold to $2m but index this with inflation. Labor's plan will hit more people than the Greens' counterproposal over the long term, according to the Australian Financial Review. The Greens' lowered threshold would immediately capture an extra 16,000 taxpayers in the first year but would hit less Aussies after about 16 years. Mr Chalmers has claimed the tax would initially only hit 80,000 Australians, however, Assistant Treasurer Danile Mulino conceded about 1.2 million, or 10 per cent of taxpayers, will face the tax within 30 years. Leading fund manager and Wilson Asset Management founder Geoff Wilson supports the Greens' call, but wants the threshold indexed well above the rate of inflation. 'With the Greens indexing it to the CPI (consumer price index), the risk there is young people are going to be significantly disadvantaged again because superannuation (is something) you effectively invest in assets,' Mr Wilson told in May. 'What it would make sense for them to be looking at is growth in asset prices, which runs at probably double, if not more, than the CPI growth. 'If you want young people not to be disadvantaged, that's what you need to do.' Modelling by AMP deputy chief economist Diana Mousina shows a 22-year-old on an average income would breach the $3m threshold by the time they turn 62. She took to LinkedIn last month with a diagram showing how an Aussie earning a three per cent annual wage growth and receiving the 12 per cent super guarantee would breach the threshold. Ms Mousina also told Sky News her diagram may have even underestimated how quickly the 22-year-old's super account would hit $3m. 'Average super returns have been about nine per cent in Australia in the last 30 to 40 years and I'm using assumptions closer to six per cent,' she said. On plans to hit unrealised gains, Mr Wilson said this would impact the 'lifeblood of Australia' as people would restructure their investments away from risk. He also warned it could 'destroy innovation' and entrepreneurialism as a large amount of investment into technology start-ups comes from self-managed super funds.
Sky News AU
4 days ago
- Business
- Sky News AU
Labor accused of ‘cannibalising' defence capability to fund AUKUS
Shadow Finance Minister James Paterson says delivering AUKUS should not come at the 'expense' of Australia's current and near-future military capability. 'I think it is very clear that Labor is cannibalising capability in army, navy and air force to pay for AUKUS,' Mr Paterson told Sky News Australia. 'While we should all be committed to delivering AUKUS, it should come at the expense of current and near-future capability, which we need to deter and hopefully prevent conflict in our region.'
Sky News AU
4 days ago
- Business
- Sky News AU
Australia increasing defence spending in ‘national interest'
Shadow Finance Minister James Paterson says Australia should increase defence spending as it is in the national interest and not because 'American friends' asked Australia to. US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth has urged Australia to lift defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP while participating in the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. 'I certainly think we should be increasing our defence spending; I am very proud of the commitment we took to the last election to do so,' Mr Paterson told Sky News Australia. 'We should increase our defence spending not because our American friends asked us to do so, but because it is our national interest to do so.'
News.com.au
5 days ago
- Business
- News.com.au
Liberal frontbencher James Paterson says Coalition should not have opposed Labor's ‘meagre' tax cuts before election
Senior opposition frontbencher James Paterson has conceded the Coalition's immediate objection to Labor's $5-a-week tax cuts contributed to the opposition's blistering election result, stating that party 'unity' was put before 'robustly interrogating policy ideas'. The $5-a-week tax cuts which come into effect from July 2026 were introduced by Jim Chalmers in the March federal budget. While the 'meagre' measures were criticised for being untargeted, they were passed through parliament just before Anthony Albanese called the election and are set to come into effect from July 2026. Speaking to Sky on Sunday, Senator Paterson conceded that the opposition should not have opposed the policy as it allowed Labor to claim that taxes would be higher under a Coalition. 'I don't think we should have opposed the government's tax cuts, as meagre and miserly as they were. In the core of the liberal party's DNA is lower taxes, and we should never oppose a tax cut,' he said. 'We should never allow the Labor Party as audacious a claim as it was to go to an election, to claim to be the party of lower taxes. The Liberal Party must always own the space of lower taxes, and under Ted O'Brien's role as Shadow Treasurer and me as shadow finance minister, that will be the case.' Although Senator Paterson declined to say whether he had personally advocated for further tax relief, stating he didn't want to go into 'private conversations' had by the leadership group, he said he personally believed lower taxes are a core Liberal value. Reflecting on the Coalition's thumping defeat that reduced its representation in the lower to house by 15 seats to 43, Senator Paterson also said that 'with the benefit of hindsight,' he believed the Coalition 'prized unity over robustly interrogating policy ideas'. 'I should have spoken up more. I should have pushed back more. I should have contested ideas more. I think all my colleagues in the parliamentary party have had that conclusion,' he said. 'Unity and discipline in politics is a critical feature of a successful political party, and we will need that in this parliamentary term, but it should never come at the expense of taking, of really contesting those ideas, of really robustly considering them, making sure that they are fit for public consumption, making sure that they contribute to the public, believing that we are ready to govern.' Party pollster Freshwater also failed to identify the Liberal's poor performance in key seats like Banks, Hughes, Menzies, Sturt and Deakin which were all lost to Labor, Senator Paterson added. He said that had the party been aware of the potential swings against the incumbent MPs, then opposition leader Peter Dutton would have spent more time campaigning in those vulnerable electorates. 'We particularly would have spent our resources differently, we wouldn't have had such an aggressive map going after safer Labor seats in the outer suburbs … had we known that we needed to be spending more to defend those seats of our own,' he said. 'You have to rely on polling for that kind of intelligence, and so that is a real problem, and I feel terribly sorry for my colleagues who are victims of that.' As it stands the Coalition holds 43 of the 150 seats in the Lower House. The Liberals are likely to gain the blue-ribbon Sydney seat of Bradfield. The initial count revealed that Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian had won the seat by a whisper-thin eight votes, however the slim margin triggered an automatic recount, with teal independent Nicolette Boele yet to concede the vote.
