Division 296 Advocacy Update

On Tuesday I was in Canberra meeting members of the Senate cross bench. It was apparent from those discussions that some cross bench members had been approached by the Government with a proposal to merge the $3m super cap bill with a popular measure to remove credit card and debit card surcharges. This appears to be an attempt by Government to convince the cross bench to either vote for the combined bill or stand against cost-of-living relief.

Thankfully, it seems the Senate cross bench did not agree to this proposal. It is clear from my discussions that their concerns about this legislation run deep and our efforts to galvanise their opposition to it have so far paid off.

As members know, this is deeply flawed legislation, and it is pleasing to see the Senate cross bench holding their ground and, hopefully, will continue doing so when it comes up for the Senate debate.  

We note the bill was scheduled to be debated in the Senate today but has since been removed from the Senate order of business. We think this is a sure sign the Government knows they don’t have the numbers to pass this bill. Given the unusual design of this tax and the system constraints of some of the large funds, there is no “quick fix” to the issue of taxing unrealised capital gains which is the primary concern of the Senate cross bench. So, it appears the Government has a mountain to climb if deals are to be done to secure their vote.