Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's interesting, because I'm going to say the opposite—what we see is someone pretending to care about poor people when the truth is that it is the Albanese Labor government that backed minimum wages. The member for New England was a part of a government that deliberately wanted to keep wages low. That was part of their economic architecture. What we're seeing is cosplay, quite frankly, in the parliament of pretending to care about the most vulnerable people in our country—absolutely ridiculous.

Do you know what this budget is about? It is a choice. It is a choice about a first home buyer getting into their own home or someone wanting their third investment property. It chooses people who want to live in a home over people who want to profit from homes. That is a choice that this government is proud to make. This is a government that is not afraid of reform, and this budget proves it.

It's interesting, because what I heard from those opposite is that renters don't want to buy their own home. What we're seeing across Australia is the number of renters increasing, particularly the age brackets, because they cannot afford to get into their own home. But the Albanese Labor government is indeed changing the system. At the heart of it, our housing system has been broken. A part of that is because the coalition did not have a housing minister for five of their nine years. For too long, Australians' dream of owning their own home has drifted further out of reach. Young people are paddling furiously and going nowhere. Since 1999, house prices have risen more than 400 per cent. That is greater than twice as fast as incomes. That is a gap that this generation is being asked to close, an ask that has locked too many out of homeownership. Too many young people in the past have not seen a pathway to creating a deposit. Too many families want nothing more than to get a foot in the door of their own home.

That's why the Albanese Labor government is coming at the housing challenge from every responsible angle. We are building more homes, we are making rent fairer, we are also backing first home buyers and now we're making the tax system fairer. Let me start with supply because, contrary to what those opposite believe, you can't fix housing without building more of it. In my electorate alone, we are delivering 524 new social and affordable homes, and 487 of those homes are coming from the Housing Australia Future Fund, a fund that the coalition voted against, a fund they tried to stop. Now, that fund is delivering homes for Australians who need them most despite every effort that those opposite made to try and block it.

Last week, in my electorate of Swan, in a suburb called Victoria Park, we did a groundbreaking ceremony for 15 new units with an organisation called Connect Victoria Park. It is an extraordinary social housing organisation, and this is their first project in 37 years. I want to thank the CEO, Luke Garswood, for his amazing work and thank his entire team. Ten of these affordable homes will be built for older women over the age of 60 who are at risk of homelessness. This is the group with the fastest-growing rate of homelessness in our community.

What the Housing Australia Future Fund is delivering is real homes for the people who need them most. But we know we need to build more, so in this budget there's an extra $2 billion for enabling infrastructure. That's $2 billion to put in the water, power, sewerage and roads that will unlock up to 65,000 homes across the country. We're also securing social housing for more than 4,000 young people at risk of homelessness, with an additional $59 million for states and territories. All of this takes our Homes for Australia plan to more than $47 billion. This is the biggest commitment to housing this country has seen in a generation. We are changing the way that capital gains tax and negative gearing work because it is the right thing to do. Negative gearing for residential property will now be limited to new builds, and the capital gains tax discount will return to the way that it was always meant to work—that is, taxing real gains after inflation with a 30 per cent minimum rate so that everyone pays their fair share of tax.

I want to make something very clear. For too long, our capital gains tax settings have distorted the housing market—a market that is now heavily weighted against first home buyers. Eighty-three per cent of the current capital gains concessions go to the top 10 per cent of earners in this country, with over half of that gain going to the top one per cent. In the past week, that top one per cent have tried to drown out the positive generational tax reform—a reform that tips the scales back towards the average Australian. This one per cent have the loudest voices and the deepest pockets. What they do not have is the right to lock a generation out of a home.

These are Australians I hear from every day, and of course I hit the streets last week when I was back in the electorate. I spoke to a young man who was grateful for the 20 per cent cut to HECS and recognised that we were trying to make the housing system more affordable for his generation. I also spoke with an older gentleman, Garry, who explained that he loved the changes and wanted them to go further. Labor is, indeed, trying to govern for all. Just yesterday I spoke with Shane North, who called the office to say that he was absolutely behind our changes. He explained that he worked hard and bought his own home and that he wanted this for the next generation—and not because he's a father. He said it's because he sees it as, fundamentally, the right thing to do. That is my community, and I'm so proud to represent them.

Let's be honest: Australians are not mugs. Australians are struggling to buy a home to live in, not to hold as an asset. They want homes to live in. A house, first and foremost, should be a home. It's a roof, it's security and it is the place where you grow your roots and build a life, and every Australian deserves a fair shot at one. This change balances the scales. The system is tilting back towards first home buyers, back towards young families and back towards the generation that has been locked out. These changes will help 75,000 more Australians realise the dream of homeownership over the next decade. Some will say that these changes go too far. Some will say they don't go far enough. The test is not what the commentary says; the test is whether the system is fairer than it was before. Under this government, it is.

This budget is about continuing to strengthen Medicare as well. We are making urgent care clinics a permanent feature of the Australian healthcare system—not a trial, not a pilot but permanent. In Western Australia, 14 of them are now operating. Since the network began, they have delivered more than 300,000 bulk-billed visits. We are making it easier to see a doctor too. Since beginning the Bulk Billing Practice Incentive Program, there are now 234 fully bulk-billed practices across WA. In Swan we've seen the number of bulk-billing practices double.

We are also making medicines cheaper through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, listing more treatments so that Australians can get life-changing care without being priced out of it. We are also making new investments in our public hospitals so that the system is there for you when you need it most. In Western Australia this budget delivers $4.3 billion in health and hospital funding next year, rising to $5.1 billion by the end of the decade. This is health care that puts people before profits. This is what strengthening Medicare looks like.

I want to spend a moment on something that does not make the front pages but matters enormously to the people that it touches, and that's the child support system. When someone—typically a woman—leaves an abusive relationship, the child support system can become another tool for their partner to control that person. It can look like refusing to pay, underreporting of income, or dragging out tax returns for years. It is financial abuse and it keeps the cycle of coercive control going long after the relationship has ended. As of March this year, almost $2 billion in child support debts sat unpaid. That's money that's supposed to be used for children, money that pays for school supplies, uniforms and groceries. This budget delivers more than $182 million to make the child support system safer and to help more children get the support that they are owed.

Parents move from private arrangement to agency collect, so the government can do the chasing instead of the survivor. Services Australia will also be able to refuse applications that are clearly being used to harass previous partners. There will also be stronger actions against parents who delay their tax returns to distort what they owe. The ATO now has stronger powers. And anyone that has a debt of more than $10,000 and keeps travelling overseas can now face a departure prohibition order. Idiotic parents who refuse to pay their fair share of child support will get stopped on their junket flights to Bali and other destinations. That's because we want to bring fairness to the system, and this is fundamentally about helping children. These reforms are about our government's broader investment to end family and domestic violence—$4.4 billion. Closing the loopholes that enable financial abuse requires continued work, and this budget is a much-needed step forward.

Finally, the government has continued its commitment to our communities. As someone who loves riding to school with my kids, I was delighted to see that the budget delivered an extra $500 million for the Active Transport Fund, bringing our total investment to $600 million to build new and upgraded walking and cycling paths right across the country. In my community of Swan, the city of Canning received more than $1 million to build and upgrade paths connecting Metronet's railway with the Canning River through the centre of Canning. This rail-to-river pathway is funding that will make a tangible improvement to my local community. It will also be safer for kids getting to school, easier for commuters and better for families heading to Cannington Leisureplex.

The Albanese Labor government is also providing $840 million in community infrastructure through programs such as Thriving Suburbs, Growing Regions and Stronger Communities. This funds things like libraries, parks, community centres, and sporting and cultural facilities that make our community a much stronger place. In my electorate, the Thriving Suburbs initiative is helping the City of Belmont deliver the Belvidere Streetscape Revitalisation Project with $4.7 million from the Australian government. This will transform Belvidere into an active main street that puts pedestrians and cyclists ahead of cars, with green space for markets and events, and a pocket park, better lighting and support for local businesses. It will be a safer, greener, more vibrant heart for Belmont.

The Albanese Labor government has continued to deliver for my community. There is a long pipeline of projects. The Boorloo Bridge is one of the most spectacular bridges that we have in Western Australia. It connects Victoria Park to East Perth. It is stunning, it is beautiful, and commuters, walkers, joggers and cyclists have all embraced it. I also have to say that upgrades to Metronet have been outstanding. I was not anticipating how amazing the new train stations would be and how much more productivity there'd be in our community, but Long Park, which is a six-kilometre park, is outstanding, and I've been to at least three birthday parties at the train station now, which is something that I could not have imagined. We've also seen $5 million to upgrade Maniana Park, which is in Queen's Park, a community that has often been overlooked. And we've seen $5 million to upgrade the Langford netball centre. These are tangible ways that the Albanese government is making a difference in the community of Swan.

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