Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

What we just heard then was a diatribe by a dying tribe—a diatribe by a dying tribe that went to the last election promising to raise income taxes on all Australians and to spend taxpayer dollars on long lunches for bosses. But the fact is that the Liberal Party has always been the party that has opposed significant reform in Australia.

Indeed, when we go back to 1942, when the Curtin government put in place uniform income taxes, the coalition were against it. Arthur Fadden said:

… taxpayers under 1,000 pounds pay too little tax and those over 1,000 pounds pay, relatively speaking, too much tax.

Even back then we had the coalition parties saying that low-income workers should pay more so high-income earners could pay less.

Then in 1986 we've got the fringe benefits tax put in place by the Hawke government, and we had Jim Carlton standing in the House of Representatives saying:

We are totally opposed to this new business tax, this new payroll tax, which will destroy investment and destroy employment.

And we had Albert Adermann, another coalition member, in 1986 saying:

… these inequitable taxation propositions must be reversed and abolished.

The party of long, taxpayer funded lunches for bosses has always had its snout in the public trough.

When the capital gains tax was introduced for the very first time and the debate came to this House in 1986, Jim Carlton said:

This is a day of infamy for this Government … We are opposed to this capital gains tax. We will vote against it here and in the Senate, and should the legislation pass we will repeal it on our return to office. Make no mistake: After our Bicentenary in Australia there will be no capital gains tax.

It's one of the fundamental pillars of revenue raising in this country, and the coalition were against it when it came in. David Hawker said of it in 1986:

… this tax is plain stupid …

Then when Labor, under the Keating government, put in place universal superannuation—superannuation not just for those who came from money but from those who aspired to money—Richard Alston said in 1992:

… we are still fundamentally opposed to the whole concept of compulsory superannuation.

And Noel Crichton-Browne said:

This legislation will impose an added cost, an added burden, on the employers of Australia, significantly reduce employment and, naturally, increase unemployment.

The fact is that they were dead wrong on all of those things. Uniform income tax, fringe benefits tax, capital gains tax and universal super are now fundamental pillars of the Australian taxation system. The coalition has long been on the wrong side of history. They are, after all, the party that opposed Medicare, native title and the Sex Discrimination Act.

What we are doing in this budget is reducing the tax burden for over 13 million workers, supporting 75,000 more homeowners into the housing market and delivering a productivity package which will boost growth in this country. That productivity package is absolutely fundamental to ensuring that dynamic businesses can thrive. The national competition policy reforms are estimated to add around $13 billion to the economy every year, which is an average benefit of $1,200 for every household every year. That involves cutting financial sector paperwork, reducing duplicative data requests, streamlining foreign investment and ensuring skilled workers don't need separate licences and fees to work across state borders.

Just to take one example which is so important to this government's housing supply agenda, before this budget, it was necessary for Australian builders to pay to access the construction rules to which they had to comply. This budget makes access to all standards referenced in Australian legislation free. That means that a builder can read the rule book without paying for the privilege. That'll save small trade businesses up to $1,600 a year in access fees.

We've seen productivity in the housing construction sector fall 12 per cent over the past three decades, even adjusting for the fact that modern houses are bigger and better quality. The Productivity Commission has estimated that new regulation can add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of new homes. This budget speeds up approvals and encourages the better use of modern construction methods. A new report out today by Danika Adams and Jonathon Mahon from CEDA on modern methods of construction finds that they can make houses that are 20 per cent cheaper and produced up to 50 per cent quicker. This budget will help the uptake of modern construction methods.

The budget will also cut the time it takes migrant trade workers to enter the workforce by up to six months. We've got a shortage out there of electricians, plumbers and carpenters. Faster recognition means more people earning and more homes being built. This is all part of the government's housing supply agenda.

Many small businesses will benefit from the $20,000 instant asset write-off being made permanent, which gives them more certainty when deciding whether to buy the ute, the coffee machine, the laptop or a new piece of machinery.

We are investing in the institutions that shape Australia. We're investing in individuals through free TAFE, better skills recognition, reforms to occupational licensing and the huge power of work the education minister is doing from early childhood right up to university. We're investing in infrastructure, building more homes, improving digital systems and supporting the transport and energy networks that connect people to opportunity.

Our changes to capital gains will ensure that the system is fairer, taking it back to the way in which it taxed real gains from 1985 through to 1999. For some asset classes, this is going to be better for investors than the current arrangement. If your gain is less than twice the inflation rate, you'll be better off as a result of Labor's approach of taxing real gains. We're taking away a distortion that arose from the combination of the 1936 change that introduced negative gearing and the 1999 change that put in place a distorting capital gains tax discount. That led to the housing market blowing up, pushing the price of homes outside the reach of regular Australians.

Those opposite are fighting for investors' fourth homes; we on this side of the House are fighting for first home buyers getting their first home and getting into the housing market. The coalition used to support this, back in the days of Menzies, when the coalition oversaw an increase in the homeownership rate in Australia. But, over the last couple of decades, we've seen a fall in the homeownership rate, and under the previous government they went years without even having a housing minister.

This budget invests $2 billion in enabling infrastructure, speeding up housing approvals and cutting red tape. It was a pleasure for me to join the Treasurer and the housing minister at Belconnen at a new development in my electorate just near the Belconnen owl that will see 315 new units, some of them social and affordable homes, improving housing affordability.

Our budget has been praised by many outside experts. Chris Richardson says:

There's a lot to like in this budget.

… what we haven't had is a budget that tackles some of the 'to-do' list that Treasury and the Productivity Commission have had sitting in their top drawers for many years.

This does that.

Aruna Sathanapally, the CEO of the Grattan Institute, says:

… the government delivered a broad and ambitious budget. It is meaningfully working its way through the to-do list for making Australia's economy more dynamic and thereby more resilient.

Ken Henry says:

Finally, a budget of economic reform.

… Jim Chalmers' budget takes a very big step. And it is a step in the right direction.

The CEO of Chartered Accountants ANZ, Ainslie van Onselen, says:

There are genuine positives in tonight's Budget, and we acknowledge the government's willingness to address some long-standing imbalances.

Luci Ellis, chief economist at Westpac and former assistant governor at the RBA, says:

I think the tax changes on negative gearing and capital gains are really significant. These are changes that everybody thought was politically impossible. … Suddenly a government has actually dealt with that. It's an intergenerational issue that they're addressing.

We on this side of the House are addressing longstanding tax reform and boosting housing supply. Those on that side of the House are continuing their tradition of opposing every significant reform in Australian history. They will go down again on the wrong side of history.

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