Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Albanese government's recent budget is all about making it easier for young people in Melbourne's west to buy their first home. I want young Australians in my community to know that, while making big changes sometimes triggers a lot of predictable noise from those opposite, online and in the media, we are fighting for you.

In the recent federal budget, we committed to a series of tax changes that will even the playing field between first home buyers and investors at auctions across the country, tax changes that will cut income taxes for all Australian workers five times in three different ways, and tax changes that will even the playing field between people trying to buy their first home to live in and investors buying second, third, fourth, fifth or 10th home to profit from. Today, negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts give property investors an unfair advantage at auctions over people wanting to buy their first homes. We're going to change that. Plenty of Australians, particularly young Australians, feel like the system just isn't working for them at the moment—that, no matter how hard they work, the system won't let them get ahead. If people don't think the system is working for them, they'll give up on it. They'll give up on the political parties that won't fight for them, and then they'll give up on our democratic system altogether.

We're seeing the consequences of this in democracies around the world. Housing is ground zero for this kind of frustration and anger in Australia. Every Australian should be able to aspire to own their own home. Our tax system shouldn't crush the aspiration of first home buyers by turbocharging the buying power of investors buying their second, third, fourth or 10th home. For too long in Australia, people who earn a wage for a living, the vast majority of working Australians, have been treated more harshly by our tax system than people who can afford expensive accountants. Housing is too important to our society for the tax system to be rigged against first home buyers. So instead of sitting on our hands, we're doing something about it, just like we took action in last year's budget through our five per cent deposit policy, which has already helped over 250,000 Australians buy their first home, including more than 2,700 in our community in Melbourne's west.

We still understand, though, that the major cause of Australia's housing challenge is that for decades our country hasn't built enough homes. So we'll ensure that, if you're adding to the nation's housing stock by building a new home, you'll still be able to negatively gear it.

In addition, we're continuing with the biggest, boldest, most ambitious Commonwealth housing agenda we've seen in 70 years: a $47 billion commitment to building more houses in Australia. In this year's budget, we've committed an extra $2 billion to fund enabling infrastructure for housing construction: the pipes, paths and power that communities need for more housing. Even better, we're delivering this funding in a way that incentivises state governments to fix their planning processes and accelerate construction. That brings the total we've committed to housing infrastructure to a record $6.3 billion.

Change is hard in the current political and social media environment. The people who benefit from the status quo make a lot of noise. But we know, when the system's not working, it's up to governments to act, and that's exactly what we're doing.

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