Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On this quiet evening I wish to talk about fiscal reform. Our economy allows us to build a great society, but what is it that should be our endgame? What do we want to achieve from our economy? What should we do, and—if we do it—will it get us there? Currently, the broader community is having discussions about tax reform, GST, superannuation, negative gearing, welfare expenditure and fairness. I have a strong belief that we should focus on two very important fundamentals when we talk about fiscal reform: firstly, Australians should be able to be gainfully employed; and secondly, Australians should be able to afford to buy their first home.

We need to ensure that we can help people have a job. There is a sense of worth in a job. There is something honest about being able to work. I remember talking to an older farmer one time—a guy by the name of Norm Jeffries, who has now passed away. We were talking about doing hard, physical work and being tired at the end of the day. He said, 'It is a good, honest feeling to be able to go to bed at night knowing you've done some physical work.' Our reforms about getting Australians jobs should be looking at flexibility. I think there is a discussion to be had about industrial reforms and about the removal of penalty rates in recognition that we do have a 24-hour economy, but allowing employees to benefit from the upside of a company or a business that they work with to create a sense of ownership. The reforms should be about opportunity. We have to ensure that we can get Australians to get on that first rung of the ladder in the job market. People have to have training, some encouraging and some mentoring to get on the first rung of the ladder, and we need stronger encouragement for small business to employ people.

There also has to be an obligation—an obligation to take the job that is available and to be mindful that unemployment benefits are a support but they are not a destination. In thinking through the obligation, I say to our young Australians that we want you to have a future, we want you to have a job and we want you to succeed. It is our focus as a government to drive that reform.

Australians should also be able to buy their first. It worries me that increasingly the dream of acquiring home ownership is moving beyond the reach of many young Australians. To quote the great guy by the name of Darryl Kerrigan from The Castle, he said, 'It is not a house; it is a home. A man's home is his castle.' That epitomises what it is all about—that sense of place.

At a time when interest rates are low, there is, I believe, a failure in policy that it should be possible to encourage first-half home ownership without reducing the current values of real estate properties. Young Australians, I believe, should not have to compete with the world when purchasing a house. I was recently in Malaysia and reading of the great opportunities in the Malaysian papers about how cashed-up investors can buy housing property in Australia. I think greater oversight of investment rules is important.

I also think there is an argument for restrictions on negative gearing for third properties. Certainly a person should be able to buy their primary residence and then, perhaps as a couple, save up for an investment property. Negative gearing does allow for private investment to address issues with housing, instead of the government stepping into public housing. But I do wonder whether negative gearing should be available for purchases of third properties. There is an argument that we need to look at that as part of tax reform and also that that is only inhibiting people who are substantially well off from competing in the housing market with first-home buyers. Also with interest rates where they are, in a lot of cases things should be positively geared not negatively geared, so I do not think that would be an inhibitor to encourage investment.

Those two focuses need to be the endgame as we think through reform, as we have a broader discussion about tax reform and as we have a broad discussion about our economy. Alternatively, if you can have every Australian who wants to work gainfully employed, that is a strong economy and, if they can purchase a property and live out the Australian dream, those two things are what we should always focus on. If we can focus on those two things, many things will fall into place.

There is value, as we have this broader discussion, of stating where our endgame wants to be and working backwards from that. That is, I think, a great way to lead policy direction.