Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a strange day when the government has a budget that has losers and losers, not winners and losers. Given that they marketed that there would be an intergenerational win for one generation and a loss for another, even stranger are the outcomes that the government has managed to produce with this high-taxing budget. Not only does this government claw $70 billion more, it forecasts that housing will go down. The number of houses will go down. It forecasts that rents will go up. These are the government's own forecasts.

Not only is it a war on the older generations who have accumulated wealth and put their capital aside to look after their retirements and look after themselves, and people who are earning their way in Australia; but they've also simultaneously made it harder for a young person to get ahead. They have lifted up the ladder of opportunities. Negative gearing is scaled back. Capital gains tax now applies even to the savings account of young people for first homes—the money that they are trying to make work for them to save a deposit to buy a house.

This is a war on aspiration. This is a war on all generations and on the movement of capital to generate some wealth for individuals. Why is this so? Because this is a Labor government, and a Labor government has one founding principle: your money is their money; what belongs to you belongs to them. When the government collects $70 billion more dollars, this is not a time to cheer. And, when they give you 250 bucks back, you should realise the government is taking more of your money.

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