Renee Coffey (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

More than 20 years ago I bought my first home: a run down flat in Cannon Hill. I was 21. I was living out of home, working multiple jobs and saving half my pay cheque. Within two years, I had a small deposit, and with it I bought a home of my own. For young people today, including my niece. who's up in the gallery, that same pathway is out of reach, and that is not fair. I hear it from young people trying to get a foothold, from parents worried about their children's future and from grandparents who want the next generation to have the same chances that they had.

That's why our budget invests a further $2 billion in infrastructure and continues our five per cent deposit scheme, which has already helped more than 1,215 people in my community of Griffith buy their first home. And we're building an additional 100,000 homes reserved just for first home buyers. We will limit negative gearing to new builds, reform capital gains tax arrangements and extend the ban on foreign investors buying existing homes. This budget delivers a historic package of reforms that will help rebalance the system. Young people today deserve the chance to buy their own place.

It is clear the status quo on housing isn't working. Australians are facing a housing system that is stacked against them, so we are changing it. This is what real action on housing looks like, not like what we've seen from those opposite, who want to blame it on our migrant communities and God knows what else.

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