Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I accept that interjection—$42,000 is not fair. But currently it is $38,000. We are debating the final four, which represents a six or seven per cent increase on the cost of a degree, and whether it is paid for by the person who gets it or by the family that never gets their child into university. I think fundamentally there has to be some element on the way through of paying for the private benefit of your degree. It is a debate that we accept. We are quite happy for the Labor opposition to say, 'No, these degrees are so important they need to be paid for by the taxpayer.' I am happy to hear that debate and exactly how they justify it, but I suspect that we will not.

Lastly, in this budget there are home savings proposals for young, potential homeowners trying to get their first home. You will see that what you can do is pay additional amounts through your superannuation, an existing structure, into a savings account that has a 30 per cent tax discount when that money is taken out. That was a response to potential homeowners saying, 'I've got the salary. We've got the earning capacity to fund a loan. We just can't get the deposit.' So the solution is to help that small cohort get that deposit together as quickly as possible.

But, of course, Labor gets most exasperated from their urban seats, where prices look very high. Every weekend they go to auctions and they roll their eyes and say, 'No, no. We've got to hit capital gains tax; we've got to hit negative gearing.' It is as if they have never visited a regional town where you are flat out selling your place. Let's go to Goulburn or let's go to—

An honourable member interjecting—

I will take your interjection. Capital gains is the issue. Let's go out and hit a retiring couple trying to sell their home in Moranbah and find their way back to Brisbane where they can retire close to where the kids work. You are just going to knock negative gearing and capital gains tax. That is the one element, the one piece of reward, for holding onto an asset for a period of time. When you are from the inner city and goat cheese is on the menu, it is quite easy to take that view. But, when we deliver policy, we need to recognise that home affordability is heterogeneous problem. It is very different very close to the CBD. It is very different in the outer sprawl where we are developing new homes and we are very reliant on state governments and councils. And it is very different again in regional Australia where—do you know what?—there is no housing affordability issue whatsoever. The last thing that this government will do is allow the Labor Party to come into power and attack those people in the regions for whom buying and selling a house can mean the difference between retiring close to kids or being stuck where you are miles away from them.

At every level we just want to see some clarity from the Leader of the Opposition. It is a gratuitous point that I make, but, if you want to understand why the individual is tracking so poorly despite the party doing so well, increasingly, you have to do what you say and say what you do.

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