Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

The obligation that we have as members of parliament is to ensure that we deliver better living standards for our kids and generations to come. That is our goal, and that is what we work towards every day as a government. But, over the last decade, that commitment and promise to the next generation has been under threat. Young Australians are facing increasing pressure from the cost of housing, they've inherited a massive debt from the previous coalition government in the wake of COVID, and the threat of climate change is eroding their quality of life.

We have an ageing population, which means there are more people in our economy and our society who require aged care, the NDIS and hospital and health services. That is putting an impost on the budget and, at same time, reducing the same number of taxpayers that are actually paying tax to fund those services. This is putting pressure on the welfare of younger generations of Australians. But this is something that our government is committed to addressing. We are acting to ensure that we make our taxation and welfare systems much fairer to produce more equitable outcomes for future generations. We're putting in place those policies to ensure greater intergenerational equity through our taxation system to ensure our children inherit a better quality of life through a fairer tax system, a more affordable housing market, a clean and safe environment through stronger action on climate change, a sustainable budget position and an affordable and fairer education system.

Making the taxation system fairer, particularly the income tax system, is one of the priorities of our government. It was the principal policy that we took to last election. During our last term in office, we reduced the rate of income tax on all Australians to ensure that the tax system was fairer. We're following that up with two further income tax cuts—one this year and one next year, which will see the rate of taxation on the minimum level income threshold in Australia fall to 15 per cent. The greatest beneficiaries of that reform will be lower- to middle-income workers, the majority of whom would be younger Australians who are starting out in the labour market. This will be a great benefit for younger workers. It will return some of the bracket creep that has crept into the system over recent years. For the average wage earner, it will reduce their taxation by about $30,000 over the next decade. It's a great relief for younger workers into the future. I might point out that this is a policy that has been opposed by the opposition. At the moment, they are supporting higher taxes for younger workers and low- to middle-income workers in this country.

We're not stopping there. We're also increasing the Medicare low-income threshold to ensure there is additional relief for younger Australians who are paying the Medicare levy. We're also making sure that our broader taxation system is much fairer and more responsive to the needs of the economy into the future and to the welfare of younger Australians. We're reforming the multinational taxation system. We're reforming the petroleum resource rent tax system so that it raises more revenue for younger generations for a fairer return on the exploitation Australia's natural resources. This issue has been identified for some time. When the opposition were in government, they refused to act on it. Labor acted in a first our term so that the PRRT is now a much fairer system. Thanks to the assistant minister for the Treasury, we've now got a much fairer multinational tax system in Australia as well.

When we talk about intergenerational tax reform and making the taxation system fairer, one of the greatest demonstrations of our commitment to that is to make the superannuation system fairer in Australia, and particularly the taxation of superannuation. At the moment, we have a system where ultra-high-income earners can shift their income out of the normal income tax system and into superannuation to get a concessional treatment of their income and avoid paying their fair share of tax. It is an unfair system, but it is encouraging people to do that. We are cracking down on that. We are acting on that to ensure that ultra-high-income earners pay their fair share of tax and cannot avoid a fair rate of tax by transferring their income into their superannuation, which most Australian wage earners cannot do. It affects a very small proportion of the population—less than one per cent of the Australian population—and the major beneficiaries of this intergenerational fairness will be younger Australians in a better retirement income system. But—what do you know?—it's opposed by the coalition. It's also opposed by the crossbench, and the irony is that they've proposed this matter of public importance here today. This is a reform that will ensure a greater and better level of intergenerational fairness in our taxation system—opposed by those opposite.

If you give a child an education, you give them a better life. This is something that our government knows all too well. It is deeply committed to ensuring that we have greater equity in our education system, be it through a massive investment in our public schools or finally funding public schools to the level of need in Australia, as recommended by David Gonski over a decade ago. It's also in our tertiary education system. We all know that students have faced a large increase in their HECS debts due to indexation over recent years. We've acted. The first piece of legislation that we put into this parliament was to reduce the HELP debts of Australian students by 20 per cent. Speaking to students in Kingsford Smith, I've heard that it's welcome relief for them in their challenge of getting an education and having an affordable lifestyle as well. We've also increased the repayment threshold, which has been a great relief for students. It means that, for the average student with an average debt of $27½ thousand, their debt is cut by $5½ thousand.

We've also ensured that APRA changed the lending rules and the lending requirements for young people seeking to gain a home loan, ensuring that financial institutions can't use a HECS debt against a person who is applying for a home loan. We're acting to ensure that access to housing through lending is much more affordable.

We're introducing practical payments for students who are required to undertake prac placements as part of their degree or their training. Fee-free TAFE will ensure not just that we're investing in the skills that Australia will need into the future but, more importantly, that those Australians that want to train for a trade or do a traineeship can have access to it at an affordable rate into the future.

In terms of housing, for the first time in a generation, we have a government at a Commonwealth level that is committed to substantially increasing the supply of housing in this country by directly building more homes. That's something that the opposition completely shy away from when they're in government by saying, 'Housing is the responsibility of the states; we're not going to get involved in that.' We take a different view. We know that there is an undersupply of housing in Australia that has pushed up the cost of housing, particularly for young Australians. That is why we introduced the Housing Australia Future Fund, which is now making its first and second distributions that will directly fund social and affordable housing throughout the country. A total of 55,000 social and affordable homes will be built by this government to increase the supply of housing and make it more affordable; 10,000 homes, in a first for Australia, will be specifically reserved for first home buyers and built by this government. If that's not a commitment to increasing the housing supply and making it more affordable for young Australians, I don't know what is.

We're also making it easier for Australians to own their first home. The Help to Buy scheme will encourage a co-investment of up to 40 per cent, and the five per cent deposit scheme has gone through the parliament and will start in the coming months. We're also working to ensure that the rules around housing are liberalised and that the states, in their zoning and planning requirements, ensure that they're focused on delivering more homes, particularly where those homes are going to be built around mass transport, public transport, in Australia.

We're also making sure that young women get a better deal by increasing the superannuation guarantee to 12 per cent, paying paid parental leave for up to 24 weeks and, importantly, paying superannuation on paid parental leave for the first time to ensure that young women get a fairer outcome in the labour market, particularly when they have to have breaks to raise children. So our government is committed to ensuring that we deliver on that promise that every government should make to younger generations of Australians, and that is to deliver better living standards. We are delivering that for younger Australians.

See this speech in context