The Federal Government has refused to guarantee Australian farming families they will not be worse off under capital gains tax (CGT) changes introduced to Federal Parliament last week.
With peak agricultural bodies warning that local producers could face massively higher tax bills when transferring properties to their children, the Coalition has urged the Minister for Agriculture to listen to industry concerns.
Member for Gippsland and Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Darren Chester, said local farmers would face additional stress, uncertainty, and higher management costs if the legislation passed.
“We have given the Minister several opportunities in Question Time this week to guarantee that farmers won’t be worse off under this budget of broken promises and higher taxes, but she refused to give a straight answer,” Mr Chester said.
“Our world-class farmers are good at managing risks like seasonal conditions, commodity prices and fluctuations in fuel and fertiliser prices. But how are they expected to manage the risk of a lying Prime Minister?
“Like everyone else, Australian farmers were never given the opportunity to vote on the tax changes because the Prime Minister misled the nation at the 2025 election.”
Mr Chester said the proposed CGT changes would make critical succession planning far more difficult for multi-generational farming families across Gippsland.
National Farmers Federation president Hamish McIntyre said the message from the agricultural sector was clear.
“The last thing this country should be doing is making it harder for the next generation to stay on the land,” Mr McIntyre said.
“Family farms often represent farmers’ life savings, carefully invested in over decades to support their retirement and to provide a succession pathway for their children to enter the sector. We need to ensure changes to CGT don’t unintentionally compromise the future of Australian farmers.”
The concerns were echoed by Victorian Farmers Federation acting president Peter Star, who noted that skyrocketing regional land values had exacerbated the issue.
“A farming family simply cannot absorb the kind of CGT liabilities now arising when transferring a farm to the next generation,” Mr Star said.
“Farmland values have increased dramatically over the past 20 years, but the thresholds governing access to CGT concessions have stayed frozen in time. We’re working off a framework that is no longer relevant.”
Mr Chester urged the Government to be honest with food and fibre producers who are already dealing with challenging economic conditions.
“Farmers are facing more uncertainty from a government that was elected on a broken promise,” Mr Chester said.
“This is not about special treatment… it’s about making sure our farming families have a future on the land and are not hit with more taxes by the Labor Party.”
