Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Energy Security and Affordability) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I don't need to tell you or any other member of this place just how tough things are out there in the economy at the moment, whether you're talking to businesses watching their cash dry up or charities finding it harder to raise the money they need to do the good things in our community. But two areas of the community that are really struggling are young people struggling to get on the property ladder and renting pensioners. Costs are going up everywhere for pensioners on fixed incomes, and they are hurting. In this context, Australia turned its eyes to the government, hoping they would deliver a budget that would provide some relief, some hope, a light at the end of the tunnel that would help them out. Instead we got the highest taxing budget ever delivered by a government since records have begun. It is the highest taxing budget.

What has it done? It's done what all taxes do: it's taken away hope and ambition. I'll give you just one example. Page 158 of Budget Paper No. 1 reveals that 35,000 fewer homes will be built in Australia over the next 10 years because of these tax measures. That is a direct quote from their own budget papers. If you tax high, you kill off investment, and that is what is happening. For young people who are hoping that opportunities will grow for them on the housing ladder, no. Labor have just taken them away.