Australian news and politics live: Poll puts Angus Taylor as preferred PM, Labor reacts to Budget fallout

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has labelled critics of his Federal Budget “unhinged” as he and fellow Labor frontbenchers have defended growing concerns the Albanese government is trying to slap a “death tax” on Australians.

Federal ministers have faced a barrage of questions on proposed changes in Tuesday night’s Federal Budget, including why the new discretionary testamentary trusts weren’t excluded from the capital gains tax changes.

For everyday Australians, they are trying to understand why the Government will soon be slapping a minimum 30 per cent tax on certain trusts.

Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek refused to agree that the tax on testamentary discretionary trusts is a “death tax,” but has accepted the Budget move will hit families who try to shift their “money around”.

Appearing on Channel Seven’s Sunrise program, the Social Services Minister also suggested it was reasonable for trusts to be taxed if families were attempting to move their money around for tax minimisation purposes.

Ms Plibersek rejected suggestions the policy amounted to a “death tax”.

“Well, testamentary trusts are trusts that you set up to distribute money to your kids after you’ve died,” Ms Plibersek replied.

“You can either distribute that money in set shares to your children, or you can have someone else deciding that this kid gets more this year, this kid gets less this year.

“What we are saying is if the share is fixed, no change, that’s fine.

“If you are able to shift the money around, you might be doing that to minimise tax, so that is going to have the minimum 30 per cent tax.”

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Treasurer Jim Chalmers has faced multiple questions at a Brisbane press conference about why he didn’t exclude new discretionary testamentary trusts from the capital gains tax changes.

Despite much of the Budget being a “cut and paste” of Bill Shorten’s election platform in 2016 and 2019, Dr Chalmers included the particular trust in the changes on Tuesday night.

Dr Chalmers was the Shadow Minister for Finance at the 2019 election.

“I’m not revisiting the decisions that we took some time ago,” Dr Chalmers said in response to questions about his change of tune.

“My job is to make the right decisions on policy in 2026. Not to re-do the policy decisions taken in 2018 or 19 or whenever it was.”

Dr Chalmers on Monday confirmed that while fixed deceased estates, fixed trusts, and existing discretionary testamentary trusts were all exempt from the changes, newly established trusts are not.

Dr Chalmers said while he understood keeping the “busted status quo” would have been “politically easier to do”, he insisted it was about fixing intergenerational equity.

The Coalition has accused the Government of implementing a “death tax” or “death duty” on a system used by families to pass down assets to their loved ones.

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil admits many Australians see the housing system stacked against them after the Federal Government reached a deal with Queensland to build properties specifically for first-home buyers.

“Australians see a housing system stacked against them and we want to help them out,” she told reporters in Brisbane on Monday.

“We want them to get ahead, we want them to do it in a home of their own and our government is throwing everything at this challenge.

“Some big historic reforms that will level the playing field for first-home buyers and build more homes for our country.”

Under the deal with Queensland to build 51,000 homes, more than 20,000 will be reserved just for first-home buyers.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has downplayed the impact his Federal Budget changes will have on Aussies under-35 who wanted to use wealth-building avenues to be able to buy a home.

Changes to negative gearing in the Budget he handed down on Tuesday are expected to make the strategy of renting in a preferred area while buying a cheaper property elsewhere less attractive.

Critics have also argued that targeting capital gains tax across all investments, including new shares and crypto, will limit wealth-growth opportunities for young people to work up a deposit.

Dr Chalmers didn’t directly answer when asked if he was “open to making changes in this area?”, instead insisting it wasn’t a pathway many under 35s were taking.

“When it comes to people under 35 with shares, we think about one in ten people have shares,” he said.

“What we’re doing is introducing a fairer, more neutral treatment.”

He has also claimed fewer than five per cent of Aussies under-35 were rent-vesting.

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The mysterious shareholding of Northern Minerals has again raised the ire of Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who has issued yet more disposal orders for the rare earths miner.

Monday’s decision is just the latest development in the long-running saga targeting little-known investors thought to be stalking Northern Minerals that has hampered efforts to advance its strategic Browns Range project in the East Kimberley.

The orders, issued through the Foreign Investment Review Board, have directed six investors — Hong Kong Ying Tak Ltd, Real International Resources Ltd, Qogir Trading & Service Co Ltd, Chuanyou Cong, Vastness Investment Group Ltd and Zhongxiong Lin — to sell their holdings within 14 days.

Together, the six hold an interest of almost 1.7 billion shares — or about 17.6 per cent of the miner.

“This decision was entirely consistent with advice from Treasury and the Foreign Investment Review Board, and is about protecting our national interest and ensuring compliance with our foreign investment framework,” a spokesman for Dr Chalmers said.

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Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek has refused to agree that the tax on testamentary discretionary trusts is a “death tax,” but has accepted the Budget move will hit families who try to shift their “money around”.

Appearing on Channel Seven’s Sunrise program, the Social Services Minister also suggested it was reasonable for trusts to be taxed if families were attempting to move their money around for tax minimisation purposes.

Following Anthony Albanese’s admission that future testamentary discretionary trusts would be hit by a minimum 30 per cent tax on distributions, just hours after he claimed all testamentary trusts would be exempt, Ms Plibersek rejected suggestions the policy amounted to a “death tax”.

“Well, testamentary trusts are trusts that you set up to distribute money to your kids after you’ve died,” Ms Plibersek replied.

“You can either distribute that money in set shares to your children, or you can have someone else deciding that this kid gets more this year, this kid gets less this year.

“What we are saying is if the share is fixed, no change, that’s fine.

“If you are able to shift the money around, you might be doing that to minimise tax, so that is going to have the minimum 30 per cent tax.”

Asked directly if it was a death tax, Ms Plibersek said: “No.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has accused critics of his Budget of taking part in an “unhinged scare campaign” driven by their own “partisan or commercial interest”.

The Labor frontbencher faced security while in Brisbane as the Albanese Government travels around Australia trying to sell their Budget.

It comes as a new opinion poll has ranked Labor’s Budget the worst since 1993, with a majority of voters declaring the Federal Government’s latest financial blueprint will leave them worse off.

“It would surprise me more if we got some sort of bump in the polls after some of the difficult decisions we took in the Budget,” Dr Chalmers said in Brisbane.

“The Budget was full of hard decisions, not handouts.

“I think in the middle of an oil shock which is putting pressure on people, in the middle of an unhinged scare campaign from people with a partisan or commercial interest in this, and in the context of a budget which is full of hard decisions and not handouts, I don’t think it’s especially surprising to see the sorts of polls we’ve seen in recent days.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Housing Minister have taken the Government’s Budget sell to Queensland, unveiling a deal to build 50,000 new homes, of which 20,000 will be for first home buyers.

“It’s a Budget for workers, a budget for first home buyers, and a Budget for future generations who would otherwise be locked out of the housing market,” Dr Chalmers told reporters in Brisbane.

“Tens of thousands of new homes for Queenslanders, including tens of thousands of homes for first home buyers. This is how you make a tangible difference to the housing market in this country, taking difficult decisions, building more homes, making more of those homes available to first home buyers.”

Senior Labor MP Tanya Plibersek has attempted to brush off the fallout from the Federal Budget, saying people “take time” to understand changes and make up their mind.

“There’s a lot of people who are saying they are in favour of the changes we are making, and there is a big group in the middle that don’t yet understand what has been decided, who we’ve got to talk to and explain,” Ms Plibersek told Sunrise.

“The most important thing to start with is if you are already negatively gearing, you can keep doing it, no change. If you want to negatively gear in the future, what you will do is buy a new property.”

Ms Plibersek said she didn’t want people her age being subsidised to get their fifth or 10th home.

“Pushed on why Australians didn’t yet see Labor’s vision, Ms Plibersek said: “I think that’s pretty normal.”

“People take a little while to listen to everything they are hearing... and they will make their mind up over time.

“Most people that stop me in the street to talk about housing, people my age and older, are worried that their kids and grandkids will never be able to afford a home of their own.”