Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I hear some interjections once again from those opposite, and, indeed, we have had support from the shadow treasurer in the past, criticising the existing system. The member for Canning has said that he feels the anger regularly from young Australians who feel locked out of the housing market. But we were confronted with a situation of acknowledging a problem which is there and deciding whether we would act or not.

There's someone else who was a treasurer, who is here today, who had an opportunity to do something about this, and he said this in his valedictory:

We should be wiser and more consistent on tax concessions.

He went on:

In that framework, negative gearing should be skewed towards new housing so that there is an incentive to add to the housing stock rather than an incentive to speculate on existing property.

That was the former member for North Sydney and the former treasurer of Australia in the last speech that he gave on the floor of this chamber. What we don't do is wait until we were going out the door and then decide to do the right thing. We do it up front.

See this speech in context