Today show host shuts down super tax squabble between Matt Canavan and Larissa Waters

A Today show host has stepped in to shut down a super tax squabble between the Greens leader and a Nationals senator, telling them to “save it”.

The Labor government’s proposal, which will hit super balances of more than $3m with a 30 per cent tax, is unpopular with the opposition.

Queensland Nationals senator Matt Canavan told Today’s Jayne Azzopardi on Wednesday morning that the party was prepared to “fight to the death” to oppose the tax.

“There’s no way in hell we’ll support attacks on people that don’t have the means

to pay for it,” he said.

“This so-called tax on unrealised gains is incredibly unfair. We should have a basic principle that we should only tax people where you’ve got some sort of income to be able to pay the tax man.”

Senator Canavan said many Australians, including farmers, may be asset rich yet cash poor with no cash flow to pay the annual tax bill.

“There’s no way in hell we’ll support that. We’ll fight that to the death,” he added.

“I hope the Greens won’t give them the green light on this to put in such an unfair tax.”

However, Greens leader Larissa Waters maintained the tax was needed to “raise revenue” for things such as hospitals, schools and clean, cheap renewable energy.

“I think it’s important to remember that nobody watching your show would be impacted by this tax,” she said.

“It would touch only half a per cent of people – we are talking about folk who have an awful lot of money in their super accounts. That is not ordinary people.

“So let’s see what the government comes up with themselves about what the details should be (and) we will have those discussions when the government puts something on the table.”

Senator Waters was swiftly cut off by Senator Canavan, who quipped: “What about the farmers?”

The Greens leader hit back with “I’m sure they’ve probably got better things to do than be sitting around watching telly” as Senator Canavan repeated himself three times.

The pair were cut off by Azzopardi, who was seemingly keen to wrap things up.

“You can save this argument for the Senate,” she told the disgruntled politicians.

The Greens have already given the policy in-principle support, negating the need for Labor to seek bipartisan support in the Senate.

However, the minor party has argued for the threshold to be lowered to $2m, with indexation requirements that would result in the threshold increasing over time.

Although the Coalition has indicated that it is open for negotiations, this is contingent on including indexation provisions and excluding the tax on unrealised gains like property.