Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Holt for her question. I know that she's very supportive of our ambitious housing agenda, particularly in her electorate, and I look forward to visiting her electorate as we start to get more homes on the ground.

We know how vital our tradies are going to be to building the homes that the country needs. Indeed, they're essential for our government's ambitious housing agenda. That's why Labor is ensuring that all of our tradies are going to get a tax cut. Labor's tax cuts will let our hardworking tradies keep more of what they earn. Those opposite want people to work for longer, for less, but we want tax cuts for our tradies—for our sparkies, for our chippies. For most tradies, they'll be getting a bigger tax cut under Labor than under the plan of those opposite.

It's important, particularly, for apprentices in the housing sector. We all know we need more tradies to get our houses up. For an apprentice on the average taxable income of $40,000, they'll be getting a tax cut of $654. Under the coalition's plan, of course, they'd be getting absolutely zero, nothing. Our tradies, particularly the apprentice tradies, need this tax cut for their cost of living. We want to support our tradies. That's why we're making sure our tradies are all getting a tax cut.

As I said earlier in the week, a sparky on an average taxable income of $101,000 will be getting a tax cut of $2,262. A plumber on an average taxable income of $79,000 will be getting a tax cut of $1,730. A carpenter on an average taxable income of $72,000 will be getting a tax cut of $1,563. Our tradies are getting larger tax cuts under Labor's plan because we want to make sure our tradies are there to deliver on our housing agenda. We need our tradies to clean up the mess that we've been left in the housing sector by those opposite.

We have serious housing challenges in our country, and those opposite have done nothing about supporting what we're trying to do to address them. We've already supported 4,937 homes through Housing Australia since we came to office, and we'll have thousands more, with applications currently open for the first round of the Housing Australia Future Fund and the National Housing Accord. And, of course, we've got 4,000 new social homes coming from the Social Housing Accelerator.

Since we came to office, we have committed $25 billion in new housing funding over the next decade because we want to turn around this housing challenge. We know those opposite have been all over the place. They know they're not supporting our tradies who need a tax cut. Indeed, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition over there said that they would roll back Labor's tax cuts. We want to make sure that people get to keep more of what they earn. (Time expired)

See this speech in context