Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. New analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Office shows that, over the next decade, the federal government will hand over $165 billion in tax handouts to property investors in the form of negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. Sixty-seven per cent of the benefit will go to the top 20 per cent of earners, while only 14 per cent will go to the bottom 50 per cent of earners. Can the Prime Minister explain why Labor believes this is a good thing?

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks to the honourable member for the question about tax reform and about housing. I will tell you what Labor believes. Labor believes that the best way to deal with the issues in the housing market is to build more homes. That's why, to the great credit of the housing minister, we've allocated an extra $32 billion to building more homes in our communities and in our economy, including $6 billion in the most recent budget.

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Deakin and the member for Hume will cease interjecting.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) | Link to this | Hansard source

As I said the other day, and as the minister for housing said the other day, if the Greens political party really wanted to solve the issues in the housing market, they'd vote to do that; they would vote for more homes and they would vote for us to build more homes. And that shameful vote last week, which made it very difficult to work out where the Liberal Party begins and ends and where the Greens party begins and ends on housing, really was a demonstration of the Greens political party's real priorities here. As I said last week, and as I'm happy to say again, the Greens will always put a much higher premium on fighting the Labor Party than fighting for more housing for people to live in.

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Treasurer will pause. The member for Griffith on a point of order.

Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

On relevance, Speaker: we're over one minute into the question and the Treasurer has not mentioned negative gearing or the capital gains tax once. They were the entire point of the question. It was a tight question and if he's not capable of answering, he should sit down.

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Members on my left. The member for Griffith is entitled to raise a point of order on relevance, just like any other member is entitled. The question at the end was: can he explain why the government believes this is a good thing? So that, by its very nature, isn't a tight question. If it were for a fact, a figure or a policy topic, yes. But, just so all members know, when you add a tagline into the question like this, the question is opened up to a broad intention. But the Treasurer has had time to do some comparing and contrasting, and he can answer how he sees fit regarding if he thinks what you've suggested is a good thing or a bad thing.

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) | Link to this | Hansard source

Jim-flation!

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) | Link to this | Hansard source

The only thing more pathetic than the point of order was to hear the shadow Treasurer chirping away without a question over there. He can't get a question, but he's prepared to chirp away when the member for Griffith asks his question.

The reason why building more homes, building more supply, and our $32 billion investment are so important is the Greens political party had an opportunity in the Senate last week to vote for tax changes which would incentivise more homes in our communities—tens of thousands of homes. And the point that I'm making is that if the member for Griffith wants to use the tax system to make the housing sector fairer for young people, homeless people and renters then he would have voted that way in the Senate—or his colleagues would have voted that way in the Senate. Our priority, when it comes to tax reform and housing, is to incentivise more rental properties, because, for as long as there aren't enough homes in our communities, rents will be too high.

The other important point about rents is that we have now provided, in two consecutive budgets, two increases to Commonwealth rent assistance, and rents are still too high and they're growing too fast. In the most recent monthly indicator, the annual rental growth was 7.4 per cent. It would have been 9.3 per cent without our changes to Commonwealth rent assistance. We acknowledge that rents are too high. We acknowledge that more homes need to be built. We're providing that Commonwealth rent assistance increase at the same time that we're trying to build more homes.

Last week in the Senate, the Greens voted for fewer homes, higher rents and more homelessness. If they really cared about housing, they would vote with Labor rather than vote with the conservatives.