Madonna Jarrett (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In my first speech in parliament I mentioned that one of the biggest challenges facing leaders right now is the need to address intergenerational inequality. I think everyone in this chamber should be motivated to provide at least the same opportunities and aspirations to our younger generation as what we had. That thought is the ethical proposition that underpins this bill.

I've talked to many people across my Brisbane community—parents, students, young professionals and many more. All want to see a better future for our next generation. But what I hear is: 'We're working hard. It's tough to get ahead. This system isn't working for us.' And they are right. The status quo is not working, especially regarding the big Australian dream of owning your own home. That's why we have to make a change. We have to reform the system that is holding people back.

If we look at the big reforms of our time—Medicare, superannuation, NDIS et cetera—it's been a Labor government that's had the guts to make the big decisions to deliver structural reform. With this bill, we're doing that yet again. Why? Because it goes to the heart of our core values, values of fairness and opportunity for all, and because our system is just not working. As former prime minister Paul Keating said, leadership has always been about two main things: imagination and courage. That's what this bill is.

We know Australians are doing it tough at the moment. That's why our priority in the 2026 budget is to continue to roll out responsible cost-of-living relief for people across Brisbane and Australia. This budget is about making our economy more resilient and introducing big reforms that start to address intergenerational unfairness, especially when it comes to housing.

We know that the conflict overseas is pushing up prices here—at the servo station, at the supermarket. When we first came to government, we inherited a trillion dollars of debt, bigger deficits and stagnant wages from the coalition. Since then, in every single budget we have found savings, and this budget is our most responsible yet. The budget is nearly $45 billion stronger than the mid-year update and $264 billion better than what we inherited. We've found more savings in this budget than any on record. We found $64 billion in savings, and this means we can provide real cost-of-living relief for Australians through cheaper fuel costs, funding for hospitals, free health care, cheaper medicines and more tax cuts for working Australians while still managing the budget bottom line responsibly.

As a portion of the economy, debt is below what we inherited from the coalition. That's a fact.

This budget delivers more tax cuts for workers, takes the sting out of petrol prices, helps more Australians get into a home, provides more funding for free hospitals and cheaper medicines, and supports higher wages. We're helping Australians earn more and keep more of what they earn through another round of permanent tax cuts, with the $250 working Australian tax offset and the $1,000 instant tax deduction. All up, we're cutting income taxes five times in five different ways, putting nearly $3,000 a year into the pocket of a worker on an average income by 2028.

On top of providing tax relief to workers, we're also helping keep costs down. We're cutting the tax on fuel by more than half. Without this, the people in my electorate in Brisbane and across Australia would be paying around 26c a litre more for their fuel. That's around $50 every time you fill up. We're reducing the heavy vehicle road user charge and we're giving the ACCC more power to crack down on price gouging, scammers and unfair trading practices. We're also increasing maximum penalties to corporations who do the wrong thing to $100 million and providing almost $68 million to strengthen enforcement.

We're making more medicines cheaper and securing free healthcare visits with our Medicare urgent care clinics being a permanent part of Medicare. This includes our new urgent care clinic in Kelvin Grove, which I'm very proud to have delivered. We're increasing the Medicare low-income levy, which means that over one million Australians on lower incomes will continue to pay no or a very low Medicare levy.

Since we came to government, we've proudly backed higher wages for three million of Australia's lowest paid workers every year, which has led to an increase in the national minimum wage of over $9,000 a year. Helping with cost of living—we know it's tough—is our top priority as a government, and it really is one of the top priorities in this budget. By contrast, the coalition went to the last election with higher taxes for every taxpayer and spent the last parliament opposing sensible and responsible cost-of-living relief for Australians—another fact.

This budget is also about helping people, like Mary-Cait in my electorate, buy their first home or get into a home of their own, like Karen who had lived in shared accommodation following years of unstable living. In Brisbane, we have helped more than 2,200 people into their first home with the five per cent deposit scheme. We're taking decisive action in the budget to boost housing supply and make our tax system fairer, which currently favours investors at the expense of first home buyers. This will help more Australians into homeownership and help on our work over the last four years to deliver more houses.

I don't know about others in this room, but the access to affordable housing is something that is raised with me constantly throughout the electorate, and that's why we're making a big choice to change negative gearing towards new homes and to change the capital gains tax. It would almost be delinquent of us not to do something different. Despite what you're hearing online, people will still be able to invest in the housing market. Investors can still negative gear. However, this will be for new builds, which supports our nation building. It's estimated that these tax reforms will unlock an additional 75,000 homes for first homebuyers. If you put it all together, Labor's plan is a housing system that works for Australians. We're helping Australians buy a home, levelling the playing field for first home buyers and making the system fairer.

Combined with our five per cent deposit scheme and our Help to Buy Scheme, we're shifting the scales in favour of aspiring first home buyers. We're also building 100,000 homes just for first home buyers. We're also building homes more quickly. We're tackling housing shortages from every angle, investing another $2 billion in enabling infrastructure so we can speed up the housing approvals, cutting red tape and increasing the skilled construction workforce that we need to unlock another 65,000 homes. We're banning foreign investors from buying existing homes, and we're extending that ban on foreign investors doing this until mid-2029, again, helping more Australians into a home. We're also making rental fairer and more affordable. We're continuing to work with the states and territories to get renters a better deal by strengthening renter protections and expanding long-term rental supply. We've boosted the Commonwealth rent assistance by more than 50 per cent.

We're backing Australians doing it toughest. We're supporting young people at risk get into secure housing, with additional investment in crisis accommodation, and we're doing this through the National Youth Housing Supplement. We're continuing to deliver more social and affordable homes through the Housing Australia Future Fund, including in Brisbane. We're coming at this housing challenge from every responsible angle, and this budget builds on our ambitious housing agenda. Our housing plan is pro aspirational and it is pro investment.

We're reforming the tax system for workers, businesses and future generations through the most significant tax reform package in more than a quarter of a century. Again, this package is pro aspiration, pro worker and pro investment. Our reforms include reducing the tax burden for more than 13 million workers, supporting 75,000 more home owners into the housing market, delivering over $3.5 billion in new measures that lower taxes for businesses and reducing compliance costs for businesses by $540 million a year. This is about tax relief and tax reform to make our economy work in the interests of more Australians, more businesses and future generations. It's about helping workers, it's about helping first home buyers, it's about helping businesses so that more Australians can earn more, keep more of what they earn and get ahead.

I do want to talk about negative gearing. We're reforming negative gearing and capital gains tax to help more Australians buy a home, encourage investment in new housing supply and productive assets, help fund new tax cuts for workers and, importantly, make the tax system fairer and more sustainable. This is all about backing the Australian ambition of owning your own home and encouraging investment in new homes. We're limiting negative gearing for residential properties from 2027-28 so it can be only used for new builds that add to housing supply, and we're replacing the 50 per cent CGT discount with inflation adjusted indexation from 1 July 2027 to restore taxation of real gains as well as a minimum tax on realised gains. We are not abolishing it; we're changing it. If you hear what's going on in the online media you would sometimes swear to God it was disappearing, but that's not the case.

The fundamental problem that these changes are trying to address is that people who earn an income through their labour are paying a lot more than those who earn an income through assets. Approximately 82 per cent of the population earn their income through labour versus five per cent from capital gains. It's just not fair. Right now it's too hard for many Australians to get into the housing market and get ahead. Housing prices have risen 400 per cent in the last two decades or so. They have gone from four times to eight times the average income over the past 20 years, and ownership is down seven points for young people. Just 44 per cent of Australians aged 24 to 34 own a home of their own.

Our reforms will help level the playing field for first home buyers and encourage investment flows to where it's most productive, including new housing supply. We will work with the states on further reforms to cut red tape and support homebuilding. We know more needs to be done. These reforms struck the right balance. It's part of the government's reforms to make the tax system better, simpler and fairer for workers, homebuyers and businesses.

Those opposite want to keep younger Australians down and want to continue to lock them out of the housing market. They showed their true colours voting against our cost-of-living measures, including our tax cuts. They have said they will vote against tax reform—the tax reforms that are being introduced in this bill—and that, if this reform gets passed by the parliament, they will repeal them when they are next in government. What we are doing is making fundamental change to support our communities and get more people into a home of their own. We are helping with cost of living through this bill. And I want to say to the young people across Australia and in my Brisbane electorate: this government wants to support you, to give you the best opportunities in life and to give you a fair crack. That's the Australian way, and that's what we will always fight for.

As I said at the start of this speech, as leaders we have a responsibility to ensure the next generation can live a life that they are proud of, a life that is no worse than ours. Hopefully with our ambition it's better. It requires us to set the building blocks for opportunity, the same opportunities that we had. This budget lays down the foundations to deliver just that, and I am proud to be part of a Labor government that is delivering for my community.

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