Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question goes to the Prime Minister. As property owners were slugged this week with their thirteenth interest rate rise under Labor, the Treasurer has been laying the ground for an increase in capital gains taxes on housing. At the last election, the Prime Minister ruled out changes to negative gearing, saying it would harm housing supply and be anti-aspirational. Given this, will the Prime Minister now rule out raising capital gains tax on housing?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opposition should be well aware that, in fact, the parliament is looking into the capital gains tax discount. Why are they looking into it? In November last year, at a time when the Liberals and the Nationals were still together, they combined with the Greens—the old firm got together; the old 'no-alition' got together—and they established a select committee in the other place to look at the operation of the capital gains tax discount. There it was—the Liberals, the Nationals and the Greens. Those were the days. Those were the days of unity.

And it gets worse! The shadow minister for housing, Senator Bragg—guess what? He's on the committee! He's on the committee, as is Senator Sharma. I know there are lots of people over there not talking to each other at the moment, but Senator Bragg is not one of them. He's always talking, and, in between talking about Days of Our Lives, he went on to talk about this committee. I assume he had authorisation from the Leader of the Opposition before they set up a committee to look at all of this. So, whilst what we've been doing is getting on with supply through the Housing Australia Future Fund—

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

Order! The Prime Minister will pause so I can hear from the deputy leader on a point of order. The Prime Minister updated the House on the topic he was asked about—

The member for Lingiari is warned. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will take his point of order now, as he's allowed to.

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On relevance, the question was very clear. It was asking whether or not the Prime Minister will rule out increasing capital gains taxes on housing. The Prime Minister has not addressed that and is dodging the question.

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

The Prime Minister was updating the House about the topic and what is before the parliament, so he is being directly relevant about the topic. If he was talking about another tax policy or another policy, he wouldn't be directly relevant.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am talking about who in this parliament is currently looking at the capital gains tax. It's the Liberals, the Nats and the Greens all together, over in the other place, having a look at all that.

Every year, in the lead-up to the budget, we have this game-playing. I'll talk about what we are doing, not what we're not doing. What we are doing is the Housing Australia Future Fund, and the five per cent deposits; they've helped 220,000 Australians into their first home. We're working with the states and territories to build 100,000 new homes reserved for first home buyers. We were in the electorate of the member for Spence last weekend—7,000 homes in South Australia. We're also training more tradies, with free TAFE, to build more homes. There are the incentives for construction apprenticeships. And what we're doing with Defence land is not only good for defence capability; it'll also be good for housing and for housing supply.

Every budget, what we do is focus on how we deliver for Australians. We're continuing to do that. This upcoming budget will be consistent with budget Nos 1, 2, 3 and 4 that have all improved the lives of Australians. (Time expired)