Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the question being flicked to me from the Prime Minister, from the shadow Treasurer. The question is about the examples provided in the budget to help people understand the very important and very ambitious tax reforms which are in the budget that we released last night. An important part of that is about dealing with a big distortion that exists in our tax system which makes it harder and harder for young people to buy their first home, particularly young people. What we're doing with this tax package is better aligning the tax levied on people who work versus people who earn their income in other legitimate ways, and we're levelling the playing field in the housing market. I think any objective observer of our housing market and how it interacts with our tax system would conclude that the combination of those two things is making it too hard for Australians, particularly younger Australians, to get a toehold in the housing market.

That's why we are making these changes. We understand that those opposite are heading towards making the same mistake that they made at the last election in repealing, saying that they will repeal our tax package. Our tax package gives tax cuts to 13.3 million workers. For anyone who's looking for evidence that they haven't learned a thing and they haven't changed a bit, they're coming back and saying that they will repeal our tax package.

The question from the shadow Treasurer is about capital gains. I want to tell the House what the shadow Treasurer wrote in his own book about capital gains. This is what he said, and I'm quoting—

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