Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a farce this MPI is—an MPI criticising the budget, from a shadow treasurer whose great economic idea was a thought bubble to force young people to make an absurd Faustian bargain to either raid their retirement savings or accept never to be able to buy their own home, the shadow treasurer who, as the chair of the economics committee, went around the country with a scare campaign telling pensioners that they would be made worse off by our policies, which was completely incorrect. It's little wonder that the Liberal Party are currently polling so low they're on the verge of becoming non-existent come the next election. They have zero vision, they have zero capacity to put forward a positive agenda for Australia and they have absolutely zero credibility. We saw the results of that just over a year ago at the federal election, and we saw the results last weekend in Farrer. Voters have made up their minds on those opposite.

Contrary to the proposition in this MPI, this budget delivers much-needed hope and a real plan to increase housing affordability for first home buyers. Our changes will open the door to 75,000 new homebuyers. We're making the tax system fairer by reforming negative gearing and the capital gains tax to ensure that every Australian has a chance at homeownership—and I know that everyone in this place, including those opposite, will be hearing from their communities, as I do, about the difficulty of breaking into that housing market, particularly for young people.

The changes to negative gearing are grandfathered so that those who currently negatively gear will not be affected; they can continue to do so. The capital gains that people have made to 1 July next year will be unaffected. Gains procured on existing investments prior to the start date will retain the 50 per cent discount. Most importantly, investors can still use negative gearing on new homes, so it's building into the tax system the incentive to invest in new houses and more homes, which is about addressing the supply issue as well.

For Australian workers, this budget is cutting taxes for 13 million people. In the ACT, that includes 260,000 workers who will receive a tax cut of up to $250 through the working Australians tax offset, and 140,000 Canberran workers will benefit from a new $1,000 instant tax deduction. This is money going back into people's pockets. Labor governments always deliver. We said we'd cut income taxes—done. We said we'd invest in housing—done, to the tune of $47 billion since we've come to government. And we've said that we would take the pressure off working families, and that's exactly what this budget delivers and what the previous four Albanese Labor government budgets have delivered.

The shadow treasurer wants to talk about broken promises. Where was the shadow treasurer when his government promised to fix housing and then proceeded to oversee a decade of doing absolutely nothing? We don't need a lecture on promises from a party that spent a decade in government and left Australians with nothing to show for it.

This budget is about who this government is fighting for: for the hard workers doing double shifts, who will keep more of what they earn; for the young couple in any electorate—mine or that of anyone here—who thought homeownership was out of their reach; and for the small-business owner who now has a permanent $20,000 instant asset write-off. This budget is about fighting for hardworking Australians—all of them, right across this country. That is what Labor does and what this budget does.

It also invests in my own community here in Canberra, which is something we didn't see much of at all under the previous government. Yet, since coming to office, our government has committed more than $4 billion to the ACT. This is what it looks like when we are recognised as a community like the communities all around this country. Our government is investing $50 million, matched by the ACT and New South Wales governments, to upgrade the Canberra-Sydney rail link. This is something people have talked about for so long, and it is finally happening under our government. We're investing in our national institutions, which were falling into rack and ruin under the previous government, and we're ensuring that the CSIRO's groundbreaking research will continue with an additional $387 million funding boost.

This is a budget that is delivering for Australians all around this country, helping them to earn more and keep more of what they earn and find stable housing, whether it's buying a new home or getting into homelessness support.

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