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As Labor’s 2026 budget hits the legislative coalface, all kinds of stuff they’d tried to bury in the fine print are falling out. And it’s not going well for the government. John Howard was on a hiding to nothing in 2001, for being perceived as “mean, tricky, and out of touch”. The near-universal hostile reaction to the budget already has Anthony Albanese looking mean and out of touch, but the legislation going through the lower house right now shows he and Jim Chalmers as even trickier than anything Howard tried on.
First, it was the deeply buried return of death taxes by stealth. Now, an unprecedented power-grab by the treasurer is alarming the cross-bench across the political spectrum.
Jim Chalmers will have discretion to choose which assets keep CGT discounts and whether a home counts as a “new build” into the future, amid accusations the sweeping powers that allow the treasurer to decide key elements of Labor’s tax package throw up unacceptable uncertainty.
Legal and accounting professionals have blasted Dr Chalmers for including a record number of “ministerial discretions” on the most consequential tax legislation in decades, criticising the government for including the powers because the rushed changes were not yet properly thought through.
The surprisingly high level of ministerial discretion in the bill, which is being scrutinised by a parliamentary inquiry due to report on June 22, gives the Treasurer unique powers to change the types of assets and individuals affected by the tax changes after the legislation is passed.
In other words, Zippy wants to rewrite the rules on capital gains and negative gearing even further, after the legislation has already passed.
In the Westminster system, ministers have long held limited power to make regulations through legislative instruments. These are meant for technical and administrative detail, not for rewriting core policy after parliament has voted. The safeguard is supposed to be parliamentary disallowance and proper scrutiny. In practice, disallowance motions are rare and legislative instruments receive far less debate than primary legislation. When used sparingly, the system works. When a treasurer awards himself nine separate discretions on the biggest tax changes in a generation, it stops being administration and starts looking like a power grab.
The Greens and crossbenchers are demanding Jim Chalmers extensively wind back his extraordinary ministerial powers in the government’s new tax laws if he wants Labor’s budget revenue raid on property and capital gains swiftly passed through the Senate […]
Both the Greens and independent senator David Pocock said the high level of ministerial discretion in the treasurer’s new tax bill was a concern and that it left Dr Chalmers with the ability to fundamentally alter the laws after they are voted on by parliament.
Chalmers has brushed the criticism aside as “a beat-up” and claimed such discretions are normal in major tax reform. The defence does not survive contact with the facts. This is not routine housekeeping: it’s a deliberate decision to leave the most consequential elements of a multi-billion-dollar tax raid open to later adjustment by the very minister who stands to benefit politically from the revenue.
Investors, young people trying to buy their first home and small-business owners are now being told the rules may change again once the bill is law. That is not certainty: it is the opposite. When the treasurer can decide after the fact which assets keep a discount, whether a home qualifies as a new build or how exceptions will be decided, the legislation is not finished. It is a work in progress with the treasurer holding the pen and Labor’s mates certain to be on the beneficial end.
Labor won a large majority last year. Now, they’re acting as if it’s about to evaporate. Mean, tricky, out of touch and panicking.
