Latest news with #GarthHamilton
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Lifetime tax breaks for mothers should be a priority, argues Liberal MP before party review
Special tax breaks for mothers should be considered as part of an overhaul of the tax system to better support 'modern families', a Coalition MP has argued. As Jim Chalmers opened the door to a national debate on tax reform, the opposition backbencher Garth Hamilton said 'everything must be on the table' to redesign the system in favour of families. The new Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, will soon outline details of the process her party will use to review its policies – including on tax and net zero – after its thumping federal election defeat. But Hamilton, who was the deputy chair of the house economic committee in the previous parliament, said he was not waiting for the party review process to start, joining other Liberal MPs in publicly floating tax ideas. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email The advocacy offers a preview of the types of ideas that will be raised, and how public and contested the internal policy brawl will be, as the Liberals thrash out a platform to fight the next election. Hamilton is planning to run a tax review process of his own, which would bring together like-minded MPs during parliamentary sittings and host events with expert speakers. 'Our tax system must have a purpose and that purpose must be to make life better for Australian families. It's no longer enough to invent new taxes just so governments can have more money to spend,' the Groom MP told Guardian Australia. 'We need a tax system that's inclusive, that supports modern families, whatever shape they may be. If you are looking after each other, Australia should be looking after you.' Hamilton said one of the ideas that should be on the table was lifetime tax rate deductions for mothers, in recognition of the fact they faced lower salaries when returning to the workforce. Viktor Orban's far-right government in Hungary is introducing a radical version of the idea, offering lifetime income tax exemptions for mothers of two or more children as part of a plan to address the country's falling fertility rate. Hamilton understood the fertility rate argument but said he viewed the policy as more of an incentive to work and to help women build their super balances. He is also among the conservative MPs who support income splitting, a recurring policy idea that would allow parents to split combined incomes evenly across two tax returns, lowering the household's overall tax bill. For example, if one parent earned $120,000 and the other earned $40,000 then both would be taxed at the rate of someone on $80,000. One Nation pushed the policy at this year's federal election as a means of supporting stay-at-home parents. The former Coalition senator Gerard Rennick asked the Parliamentary Budget Office to model a similar policy earlier this year, which calculated it would cost roughly $12.5bn over two years. In a sign of widening support in conservative circles, the rightwing Liberal senator and shadow assistant minister for families and communities, Leah Blyth, has publicly argued the case for income splitting over the past week. 'It's not fair. It's not sustainable. And it's time we backed families,' Blyth said of the existing tax settings in a social media post last week. The Australian Financial Review reported Blyth was also working on a proposal to make private school fees tax deductible while cutting taxpayer funding to them. Speaking before Chalmers used a speech to the National Press Club to set the scene for tax changes, the shadow finance minister, James Paterson, reiterated that the Coalition was prepared to work 'constructively' with the government. 'It is self-evident that we do not collect tax in this country as efficiently as we could, and it holds back our prosperity and our productivity and our efficiency as an economy, and there are gains that can be made by reforming the tax system,' Paterson, who is acting shadow treasurer, told Sky News. 'But that is not a blank cheque for this government to increase taxes.'
Sky News AU
29-05-2025
- Business
- Sky News AU
‘Only a matter of time' before the Coalition drops net zero
Liberal MP Garth Hamilton says it is 'only a matter of time' until the Coalition drops its net zero policy. 'Honestly, I just think it is a matter of time,' Mr Hamilton told Sky News host Caleb Bond. 'No one knows the cost of it financially; I'll tell you the political cost… since we signed up, we lost 34 seats in the Coalition.'
Sky News AU
21-05-2025
- Business
- Sky News AU
‘Get back to our job': LNP MP calls for Coalition to not let Labor ‘get away' with victory
LNP MP Garth Hamilton claims the Coalition is letting Labor 'get away' with their policies every day the Nationals and Liberals remain divided. 'We are the choice Australia regularly makes when we are going through hard times, we should be really proud of that,' Mr Hamilton told Sky News host Caleb Bond. 'What really hurts the most is right now we have got a Labor government that went into the election raising the prospect of a recession coming that just released a budget that had ten years of deficits banked in, and yet they took almost no mandate to the last election, and we are letting those guys get away.'
Sky News AU
19-05-2025
- Business
- Sky News AU
Liberal MP Garth Hamilton revokes support for net zero policy as intensifying divisions on climate targets destabilises Coalition
LNP MP Garth Hamilton has broken ranks and publicly denounced his own party's net zero policy, adding further pressure on Opposition Leader Sussan Ley's leadership and exposing the increasingly visible fractures within the Coalition. Deep divisions have emerged between senior members of both Liberal and National party rooms about whether the Coalition should honour its commitment to net zero emissions by 2050, with Ms Ley and Nationals leader David Littleproud confirming the contentious policy is under review. Mr Hamilton is one of a swathe of Coalition figures who have publicly condemned the policy, revealing in an op-ed published in The Australian that he could not 'support a policy that demands a blank cheque'. Speaking to Sky News host Andrew Bolt on Monday evening, Mr Hamilton said he did not know how much the net zero policy would cost in total, and implored the Liberal Party not to advance an economic plan that would impose substantial financial burdens on future generations. 'I don't know what it costs, no one can answer that question. If we look at any other policy setting, we have AUKUS, NDIS, a free trade agreement, and even Inland Rail. We can put a cost to it,' Mr Hamilton said. 'We don't know what that cost is and it's not just a one-off change. We're talking about fundamentally changing our economy for now and for forever. That cost is going to be borne by future generations'. Mr Hamilton's comments are contradicted by numerous high ranking Liberal figures, including Senator Jane Hume and MP Zoe McKenzie, who insisted the Coalition should maintain its net zero commitments and that the dumping of the policy would result in harsh electoral consequences. When pressed about Ms Hume's resounding endorsement of the controversial targets, Mr Hamilton said that although he had 'a lot of respect for Jane', the Liberal Party had been punished for its stance on net zero and that the Coalition urgently needed to rethink it's position. 'An easy counter would be that since we adopted the net zero position in the Liberal Party, we have lost 35 seats," he said. 'I think a lot of Liberals though, are very, very clear now that net zero is an economic policy and that they're seeing that we need to regain that economic narrative' Mr Hamilton said. Mr Hamilton is one of many Liberals who have broken ranks on the issue, with Senator Alex Antic telling Sky News 'the only way' the party could rebuild was to axe the net zero targets, whilst Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price declared net zero targets were 'impossible' without nuclear energy. He also advised against the Liberals hastily dumping its nuclear policy, stating 'if you look around the world, the countries that can make a net zero commitment and progress on it, have nuclear' adding the "two go hand in hand". Mr Hamilton said there was a 'third pathway', to stick with coal and gas as "surely our energy mix should be reflective of the resources that are available to us". The new Opposition Leader has flagged the Coalition would address its energy policy in party room meetings and has refrained from definitively ruling any policy in or out. The Coalition's escalating stoush on climate policy has delayed the unveiling of the new shadow ministry, with both parties aiming to resolve their seemingly irreconcilable disagreements before finalising its leadership team.
