Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to the government's budget papers and the appropriation bills for 2026-27. The budget contains measures that respond to some immediate pressures, but it fails the bigger test on a number of fronts—and I want to deal with some of those tonight.

Firstly, Australia is not investing seriously in protecting households, communities and the economy from climate risks that are already arriving. The government has rightly spoken about resilience in relation to fuel security, supply chains and global volatility, but the same urgency is completely missing when it comes to climate resilience—the floods, the fires, the storms, the coastal erosion and the heatwaves that are already driving up household costs, insurance premiums and disaster recovery bills. The government was all but silent on that on budget night.

Earlier this year I wrote to the Treasurer, urging the government to put climate adaptation and resilience at the centre of national economic management because resilience needs to be done in advance. You don't just do it at the last minute, because sustainable economic management and community safety can't be achieved while we continue to spend far more cleaning up after disasters than preventing damage in the first place. The economics on this are clear. Over the last three federal budgets, the Commonwealth has allocated about $2.5 billion to climate adaptation, resilience and disaster preparedness, while natural disaster relief is expected to cost around $9.86 billion over the same period—significantly more, nearly five times more, on recovery than prevention.

I've called for Australia to scale up investment in climate risk reduction and adaptation to at least a quarter of a per cent of GDP, which would make it commensurate to the actual cost that occurs to the economy. It's a modest benchmark compared to the scale of the risk, and it would provide a clear, stable and accountable floor for national resilience investment. The government should not treat adaptation as a discretionary grant program. It should be treated as core national infrastructure, core national security and core cost-of-living policy.

The government conducted the first National Climate Risk Assessment, and the outcomes were dire; the findings were incredibly serious. Yet there was no response in the budget that was commensurate to the seriousness of those risks. In fact, there was so little allocated to adaptation and resilience. We have to be really clear that climate resilience is not separate from the cost of living. It is now one of the front lines, in fact, of the cost-of-living crisis. When homes flood, when bushfire risk rises, when coastal storms damage infrastructure and when insurance premiums rise, mortgages become harder to maintain, councils face higher costs and taxpayers are left footing the bill, and still there is no proper acknowledgement from the government in respect of this.

In Warringah, climate risk is not theoretical. Our community is coastal, urban, bushland adjacent and highly exposed to the natural hazards that are becoming far more frequent and more severe. Northern Beaches Council has identified the long-term climate risks facing our region, including sea-level rise and more frequent extreme weather events: bushfires, coastal floods, storms, floods and droughts. Council has also recognised that roads, stormwater systems, seawalls and buildings need to be able to withstand the impacts of the next 50 to 100 years, not just the conditions of the past. Yet local government is not being equipped to deal with those costs. The northern beaches has already experienced the real-life effects of bushfires, storms and flooding, with impacts on property, clean-up costs, repair bills, insurance costs and community wellbeing. We see it on our beaches too. Coastal erosion is already a live risk for communities across the northern beaches, with several beaches classified by the NSW government as coastal erosion hotspots. These risks are not abstract modelling exercises. They're planning, infrastructure, insurance and household budget issues.

For so many people, they work their entire life to invest in their home, and then they're unable to insure that home against the highly likely risk of disaster—and the government know this. Their own risk assessment shows that risks are escalating, compounding and cascading when it comes to people's homes, and so many are unable to insure their home. There is a complete vacuum from others in this place in even acknowledging those risks or having a plan for Australians. I've heard directly from a constituent whose insurance premiums have jumped sharply and from residents in flood affected pockets of Warringah who have been priced out of cover or denied cover altogether. This is the future we risk normalising if we don't invest in resilience: more households exposed, more businesses disrupted, more public infrastructure damaged and more Australians left wondering whether they can afford to insure the homes they've worked their whole lives to buy and support.

Warringah is not asking for special treatment. So many other communities are concerned about this, and it shouldn't be up to the communities and local people to have to deal with this alone. The government must step up to that resilience piece. We have to find ways to ensure that insurance is affordable and available for the vast majority of our communities and that there is support underpinning it. We need to make sure we can fix damaged infrastructure, and emergency appeals are there, but we have to build in that resilience.

Australia's first National Climate Risk Assessment confirms what communities are already living through: more frequent and severe floods, fires and cyclones; greater exposure to sea-level rise; higher costs; reduced productivity; and worsening inequality. Insurance is one of the clearest price signals of this risk. APRA found that, between 2010 and 2025, Australian home insurance premiums rose at an average rate of 7.2 per cent while wages grew by only 3.1 per cent. APRA also found that more frequent and severe weather events are driving premium increases as insurers reprice risk. If people cannot afford to insure their home, then they are exposed to a financial risk. If lenders become concerned about underinsurance, then mortgage risk rises. If businesses cannot afford cover, their investment is delayed. If councils can't afford to protect local infrastructure, then roads, stormwater facilities, beaches, parks and community facilities deteriorate.

Yet the Commonwealth's main resilience financing vehicle, the Disaster Ready Fund, remains far too small for the scale of the task. The government describes the fund as its flagship disaster resilience initiative, but it provides up to $1 billion over five years, which is $200 million a year. Let's just stop for a moment and think about that perspective. It's nowhere near enough. The budget itself confirms $200 million under round 3 of the Disaster Ready Fund while the risk facing communities continues to escalate. Frankly, it's backwards to spend billions after disasters, but only a fraction of that amount preventing that damage and helping communities build their resilience beforehand. Every household understands that basic principle.

The other big message that came out of the budget papers and these appropriation bills is the question of intergenerational fairness. The test of tax reform should also be in that respect. For too long we have known that the housing crisis has been worsening. Australia's housing tax settings have rewarded those who already own assets, while younger Australians are left trying to save a deposit in a market where prices have run far ahead of wages. When property investors are outbidding young first homebuyers, it is not a level playing field. I support the principles of winding back tax settings in relation to investment properties. The current tax settings that have encouraged investment into existing housing rather than new supply. Negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts have too often operated together to make established property a tax preferred investment vehicle rather than a place to live.

But good reform has to be well designed. I think there is a social licence around these changes when it comes to property investment, but the government has not made the case, and there certainly is no social licence and there is no clear productivity argument around applying the capital gains tax changes across business investment shares, employees equity startups, venture capital and small business succession. That's why I've written to the Treasurer again seeking the modelling and the rationale for the 30 per cent minimum tax rate around capital gains, seeking the evidence for these. What is the evidence to underpin extending the changes from property investment to that much broader application?

The strong feeling and the strong feedback is that people are incredibly blindsided. The government simply does not have a mandate to extend those changes beyond investment property. And, in fact, the strong concern is that it will weaken productivity and investment. Intergenerational equity is not achieved if we make housing fairer for young Australians but make it harder for them to build businesses, invest in innovation, access employee equity or grow any kind of buffer or nest egg outside of property. The objects should be clear: reduce the tax advantages that have encouraged passive speculation in existing housing while protecting the investment pathways that support entrepreneurship, that support productivity, that support clean energy, small business growth and long-term economic resilience. The Treasurer should release the modelling so parliament can assess genuinely whether these reforms are finding the right balance because overwhelmingly the feedback from the community, from that very generation that the government is claiming to be there to support, is strongly against it. They feel absolutely blindsided by these actions from the government.

I can only convey the stories that were put to me. Young professionals are working really hard. They've got good incomes, but, between high rents or high mortgage rates, they have barely anything left over every month. They are just going pay cheque to pay cheque. What little they are able to save or put aside, they are putting into start-ups, into shares or into ETFs in the hope of building a little bit of a buffer for their economic circumstances. Let's be really clear. These are not high wealth, high net worth—this is not a question of earning an income from investments instead of an income from working and being taxed on that wage. They are already paying tax through their wages. They are simply trying to save and create a buffer, and now the government's proposal is to come and yet again tear down that aspiration. I would urge the government to separate out their approach when it comes to property investment compared to innovation and productivity when it comes to small business, start-ups and, in particular, shares. This budget also really failed and left many people behind. The government talks a lot about not leaving anyone behind, but, in a cost-of-living crisis, there was nothing in this budget for the most vulnerable in our communities. At a time when rent, food, transport and energy costs remain high, the government has not delivered the serious increase to JobSeeker that community organisations, economists and its own advisory bodies have repeatedly called for. Organisations like ACOSS have warned that JobSeeker remains just $409 per week, around 42 per cent of the minimum wage, and says the payment must be lifted beyond this pitiful level.

It's not just a welfare issue. It's a dignity issue, a poverty issue and a participation issue because the level is so low people can't even get back into the workforce. It is simply unsustainable. ACOSS and UNSW research found that less than a quarter of people surveyed said they could live on JobSeeker. The government's own economic inclusion advisory committee has again recommended lifting JobSeeker, youth allowance and related working-age payments as a first priority. Yet there was nothing in this budget for all those people. ACOSS has also pointed out that the budget settings effectively freeze JobSeeker, in real terms, over the forward estimates, with no one-off increase and no change to indexation. That is not adequate cost-of-living relief. It means asking people with the least to absorb the most pressure.

Finally, in relation to the budget's investment in child support reform, this is welcome. It's long overdue, and something I've been advocating for for many years. The government has committed $182.6 million over four years, with $19.6 million ongoing, to make the child support scheme safer and more effective by addressing weaponisation, financial abuse and noncompliance. In the scourge of domestic violence, it is quite shocking that we still essentially have institutionalised facilitation of financial control. The child support system does not work because, too often, mothers are left with a child support debt from their ex-partners, and then the Commonwealth seeks to recover a debt against them from the family support payment.

The government knows this is a problem; it's recognised that women make up the majority of recipient parents and that the system has too often been used by perpetrators of family and domestic violence to continue control after separation. Parents should not be forced back into conflict, into unsafe contact or repeated administrative battles with an abusive former partner. The government must progress to a child support guarantee, and, when a parent fails to pay, children don't go without. When there is a family support debt owed to the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth should recoup it against the parent with a child support liability. Stop chasing women for those payments because all it does is give them credit rating issues, mean they cannot get into housing and mean they bear the brunt of it. There are many simple things that still need to be done in relation to this budget.

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