Coalition open to tax reform talk

Monday 9 June 2025

Shane Wright

The Sydney Morning Herald

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The Coalition has offered support for bipartisan ''holistic'' reform of the nation's tax system as long as it does not involve higher taxes, ahead of Anthony Albanese's first major post-election speech, in which he is expected to map out his agenda for the next three years.

Opposition finance spokesman James Paterson yesterday said the Coalition could find common political ground with the government in finding ways to make the tax system more efficient as part of a process to help pay for an increase in defence spending.

The Coalition is opposing the government's planned changes to tax on people holding more than $3 million in superannuation that Treasurer Jim Chalmers estimates will raise about $2.7 billion a year towards repairing the budget.

Chalmers has said the proposal is key to the government's tax agenda, pushing back at calls from economists, business groups and parts of the social welfare lobby for the treasurer and prime minister to be more ambitious.

Paterson, who as the Coalition's home affairs spokesman previously backed a substantial increase in defence spending, said he and the rest of the opposition would work on ''strong fiscal rules'' over the next two and a half years that would improve the budget and allow for more investment in national security.

Saying the Coalition had been wrong in opposing the government's cut to personal income tax ahead of the last election, Paterson said he was not opposed to a broader approach to tax reform.

''If the Albanese government and Treasurer Jim Chalmers were talking about genuine tax reform, holistic tax reform across the board that, for example, reduced the collection of taxes in inefficient areas and collected that revenue in less distortionary ways, we'd be up for that conversation,'' he told the ABC's Insiders program.

''But that's not what [the superannuation tax change] is.

''This is a grab for revenue from people's family savings in a way that will have severe unintended consequences.'' The last overhaul of the nation's tax system was the introduction of the GST in 2000.

Personal income taxes were cut when the 10 per cent GST was introduced and welfare payments were lifted.

Paterson said the Coalition was opposed to higher taxes.

''We're happy to talk to the government about tax reform. But we are not interested in increasing taxes because I don't think that's what the Australian economy needs right now,'' he said.

Albanese will go to the National Press Club tomorrow to deliver his first major post-election speech on his planned agenda for the next parliamentary term.

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