Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to thank the member for Wright for that fine contribution and associate myself with the grief that Lockyer Valley must be feeling on the loss of a fine son and a servant. It reminds me that there are many of us in this chamber who come with the best intentions and with the right motivations. I count the member for Wright, Scotty Buchholz, among those.

That brings me to the core of why I am standing tonight. I rise to talk about Labor's positive plan for a Shorten-led Labor government and the 50-plus policies that we have in the public domain now as we prepare ourselves for an election battle. It has been the year of ideas for Labor, and I am incredibly proud to have been part of the Labor team that has worked so hard to work our way through policies that we think will bring this country back to the place that we believe it should be.

I am most proud, obviously, of the 'Your Child. Our Future' policy. It was launched in my electorate and I believe it is the road to prosperity for our country—investment in our children's education. There is no more critical policy in the public domain at the moment than that policy, and yet people ask constantly, 'So how are you going to pay for that?' That is on the back of an enormous thrust from those in government around a budget repair and budget deficit narrative that has driven this country.

Standing here tonight as a Labor person what I am proudest of is that our suite of policies are about prosperity through equity and opportunity. That is what our suite of policies are about. I am proud of the work that our economic team has done in this era of budget constraint and budget fear, in terms of finding the ways and the saving measures to put those into place.

I believe that in government we can deliver on our great policies with important economic reform, cracking down on existing tax loopholes to ensure foreign multinationals pay their fair share of tax in Australia. It is critical that everyone in this country pays their fair share. How often have you heard it said? Certainly, in my electorate, I heard it said: 'Joanne, if everybody paid their fair share we'd have more than enough money.' We have done the work to ensure that that happens: tightening unsustainable and unfair superannuation tax loopholes, ceasing the emissions reduction fund, which pays polluters to stop polluting—an oxymoron—and increasing the cigarettes excise to get more people to stop smoking and, critically, to get even more kids to never start.

Our negative gearing policy, if you have watched the news over the last few days, is almost a celebrity of its own. I want to speak tonight about what that policy means on the ground. I want to be very clear with people in my electorate—who will get so much value with a Labor Shorten government and these policies—that the negative gearing policy that Labor has put on the ground is not retrospective. The person in Truganina who owns four properties, right now, and has them negatively geared, will continue to be able to negative gear them beyond 2017. Let me be clear: it is not retrospective.

What will happen beyond 2017 is that those who want to purchase a property and have it negatively geared will need to have that property make a contribution to the new stock in this country, which will drive employment. So many in my electorate are employed in the housing building industry. This is a good thing for Lalor.

Let me be clear: our policies are fabulous and we have the economic means to fund them. Labor deserves a chance at government—a Shorten-led government. (Time expired)