Ali France (Dickson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027 and other appropriation bills for 2026-2027. Our Treasurer delivered the 2026 budget two weeks ago, and it is a budget for every Australian. It is a budget for workers, for first home buyers, for families struggling with cost-of-living pressures and for future generations. It is an ambitious budget in a challenging global environment. It is a budget full of tough decisions to build resilience and bolster our economy, while also finally addressing intergenerational inequality. It is a budget that delivers more cost-of-living relief, more funding for Medicare, housing, aged care and much-needed tax reform. It also delivers for my home state of Queensland. This is a budget about resilience and security, getting Australians through the global oil shock while building a fair economy that works for more people. I am incredibly proud of it.

Global conflict has meant rising inflation and cost-of-living pressures. My electorate of Dickson is not immune. People are under stress. We recognise that and we are doing something about it. Helping with the cost of living has defined the Albanese Labor government over the past four years, and it is at the very heart of this budget. We are delivering a new round of tax cuts for working Australians. Our new permanent working Australians tax offset, worth $6.4 billion, will deliver a $250 tax credit every single year to 13.3 million working Australians from 2028. This is on top of our $1,000 instant tax deduction, which workers can claim without sorting through a shoebox full of receipts at tax time. Together with the tax cuts we have already legislated, landing again on 1 July this year and again next year, workers will save about $2,800 a year. That's $54 back into the pockets of average workers every single week. These are tax cuts that the coalition opposed. In fact, they went to the last election promising higher taxes. The coalition will kick and scream about changes to make our tax system fairer, but, when it came down to delivering tax cuts for the lowest earners, they said a big fat no.

This budget continues to strengthen Medicare. Medicare is Labor's heart, and it is mine too. I started my journey to this place to specifically reduce the cost of health care. In the year since I arrived, we have delivered 135 Medicare urgent care clinics right across the country. We have delivered cheaper medicines at just $25 a script, more fully bulk-billed GP clinics, 55 free walk-in Medicare mental health centres, an awesome women's health package and 33 endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics across the country. By July, these clinics will also deliver perimenopause and menopause services.

I got an email this week from Susan, who lives in Dickson, who told me that, since we moved menopause medications onto the PBS, she will save $1,200 a year. This is real, responsible cost-of-living relief, and it is targeted at the people who need it most. By July, four in five Australians will live within a 20-minute drive of an urgent care clinic, reducing pressure on our hospitals and delivering fully bulk-billed care. This budget includes permanent funding for each and every one of them, with $1.8 billion to ensure our UCCs are a permanent part of our healthcare system and our communities.

In Dickson, our much loved Murrumba Downs urgent care clinic has now treated over 33,000 locals, saving many, many hours waiting in A&E, and all they needed was their Medicare card. Our walk-in Medicare mental health centre at Strathpine is helping people get the mental health support they need with no waiting and no fees. This budget continues to make medicines cheaper with $5.9 billion to list new and amended treatments on the PBS for cystic fibrosis, chronic kidney disease and a range of cancers. Importantly, this budget delivers an additional $25 billion over five years to strengthen our public hospitals, which includes over $11 billion specifically for Queensland hospitals.

Queensland is a real winner in this budget. Queensland was allocated more infrastructure funding than any other state or territory, even when Olympics infrastructure funding is excluded. We won the infrastructure State of Origin with $24 billion for major road and rail projects and $2.5 billion for local roads and Black Spot programs. This includes an extra $812.5 million for stage 2 of the Dohles Rocks Road to Anzac Avenue, Bruce Highway upgrade—building on our $758 million investment in stage 1, which will connect everybody in my electorate in Moreton Bay to the Sunshine Coast; $2.5 billion for local road project upgrades and Black Spot programs; over $11 billion for our hospitals over five years. Queensland will get $8.2 billion in education and skills funding, increasing to $8.9 billion by 2029-30. That includes a new TAFE centre of excellence at the University of the Sunshine Coast Moreton Bay campus in my electorate of Dickson.

And we've done a new deal with the state government to build 51,000 new homes for Queenslanders, including 20,000 exclusively for first homebuyers. Everyone in this place knows that buying a home is out of reach for most first homebuyers. We know a shortage of housing and tax incentives for investors has created a housing market that has been appreciating faster than salaries, ambitions or our will to live. We also know that the coalition sat on its hands for nearly a decade without a housing minister, building a measly 373 social and affordable homes over nine years, while sitting on a 40-year housing supply crisis with no plans to fix it.

The median house price in Brisbane is now over $900,000. Since 1999, house prices have risen over 400 per cent, more than twice as fast as average incomes. We are the first federal government since the postwar period to focus on actually building homes. We have a $45 billion plan to build 1.2 million homes, including homes specifically for first homebuyers, and 55,000 social and affordable homes. We've already built more than 5,000 social and affordable homes. In this budget we invest another $2 billion in the power, roads and drains that we need for new housing developments, which will help add another 65,000 homes over the next decade.

Dickson is one of the fastest-growing areas in the country. Young families priced out of Brisbane and Moreton Bay tell me they just want a fair shot at a home of their own. This budget gives them that shot. We are making changes to negative gearing, to even the playing field for young people trying to get into the market. For too long, homebuyers have been losing out to investors at auctions. For too long, incentives for investors have driven up house prices beyond what an average wage earner can afford. For too long, we have treated a roof over our head as an investment portfolio. Housing has become a wealth strategy, excluding people who actually need a permanent home. We have forgotten that a home should be a place to belong, not a place to profit and build more wealth. And despite some of the misinformation online, we are not getting rid of negative gearing. We are limiting it to new residential properties from July next year. This will incentivise new house building, which is exactly what this country needs.

These changes are prospective. If you currently negatively gear an investment property, nothing changes for you. Your arrangements are grandfathered, meaning you can keep doing exactly what you are doing now and, going forward, you can still negatively gear a brand new property. In a fast-growing region like Moreton Bay, there's going to be a lot more new homes where this is going to be possible. Before these changes, young people wanting to buy a home in the area they grew up in would be lining up against 10 or 15 investors for the very same home. Under these changes, they will be competing with people who actually want to live there. That is the difference. That is fairness.

That's not the only thing we are doing to make our tax system fairer. Let's talk about changes to capital gains tax. I've seen the misleading AI generated memes of the Prime Minister laying concrete slabs and cutting hair. I've even seen him doing some stretches on a Pilates reformer. But let me be clear: the only thing being stretched here is the truth. Nobody is suddenly paying 47 per cent tax, nor is the government taking a 47 per cent stake in your business.

Unlike the stuff doing the rounds on social media, let's talk about facts. We're replacing the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount with inflation adjusted indexation to restore the taxation of real gains. We are doing this to even the playing field so that those who earn income from assets like shares and trusts are paying tax like those who work a 40-hour week. Why should our nurses, teachers, cleaners and aged-care workers pay more tax than those who earn income from shares and trusts?

These changes will also be prospective. So, if you are talking about CGT on a property, the gains you made prior to the budget will still get a 50 per cent discount. If you buy a new build, you can also claim the 50 per cent. Plus, for any small businesses turning over less than $2 million per year, you can still claim the 50 per cent if you've owned that business for 15 years and you're selling on retirement. This budget also makes the $20,000 instant asset write-off permanent, and it's delivering $3.5 billion in new tax relief measures for businesses.

This is a responsible budget that builds resilience and responds to the global oil shock, including investment to strengthen supply chains and for a permanent fuel security reserve. In this budget, we are delivering a $14.8 billion package to strengthen Australia's fuel resilience, securing more fuel and fertiliser now and building reserves and supply chains so that we are better prepared for global economic uncertainty. Ten billion dollars will go to immediate fuel and fertiliser security and a permanent government owned Australian fuel security reserve, extending our reserves to at least 50 days.

We are also reserving 20 per cent of gas exports for Aussie users so there's more supply at lower rates. Our landmark domestic gas reservation policy will require east coast LNG exporters to reserve 20 per cent of production for the domestic market from July 2027. This will shield Aussies from global price volatility and supply shortfalls. Strengthening our fuel resilience is a literal no-brainer, yet, for some reason, the coalition opposes our domestic gas reservation policy. I'll say this to the coalition: if we wanted to hear the gas lobby's opinion, we'd just talked to the gas lobby ourselves.

This budget is for everyday Aussies. It is for the worker, enabling them to keep more of what they earn. It is for the young couple in Dickson who can finally see a path to a home of their own. It is for people who work a 40-hour week. It is for the family filling up at the tank. It's for the local who can walk into an urgent care clinic with nothing more than their Medicare card.

There are tough decisions in this budget. We know there's an easier road. We could pretend that homes are affordable for first home buyers. We could ignore the fact that the average nurse pays more in tax on every dollar she earns than many investors do. We could pretend that there's no inequality in our tax system: 'Nothing to see here; just move on.' But then we would be the Liberal Party; we would be the coalition and we would be robbing future generations. That's not what I came to this place to do. This budget lays a strong foundation for the future of Australia.

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