Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2026-2027 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027 because they're not simply legislative measures; these are commitments to fund new initiatives, to strengthen existing programs and to deliver real support for those who need it and where Australians need it the most. The measures in this budget are to help Australians in every way possible, especially the ones who have been missing out for a number of years.

At the moment, this year, unexpectedly, there's a war in the Middle East. It's a war that no-one was expecting, it's a war that has put a stop to a lot of the world's oil trade, and it's pushing up prices. We have no control over it, and there'd be no control if the others were in government either. They can say and do as they like whilst they're in opposition, but the reality is that this war is pushing up prices not just here in Australia but all around the world. If you read international papers—I like to see what's going on around the world—it's copy and paste pretty well everywhere in Europe, the United States and other nations around the world because of this war and because of the lack of control that we have over it. But there are things that have been put in place and measures that this Albanese Labor government has taken on board to make it easier.

We know that Australians are doing it tough at the moment. We know there are a lot of people out there who are working very hard to make ends meet, and we know that there are people out there that are doing their very best just to survive. That's why it is imperative that this budget, which was announced last week, goes through the House of Representatives and the Senate to ensure that it is focused on and targets those people that need it the most. In the budget, we heard that there's more housing—it's a fairer budget to try and bring to fruition for those who have missed out for a number of years the Australian dream of purchasing a home.

Last weekend, and the weekend before, in this country, for the very first time in many years—in fact, in decades—young people, young couples and single people, attended auctions and bid for houses that they were previously unable to bid for because big investors were quite happy to go the extra $50,000, $100,000 or even $150,000 because they knew that they could save that money in their tax returns because of the measures that we had in place. So, for the very first time in decades, last weekend, we saw young people being able to be part of that auction bid to purchase their own homes, and we saw reports in the media on Sunday and again today of young couples that actually purchased their homes. There are also tax cuts in the budget. There's a $250 tax offset for workers—and of course the $2,616 average across the nation, which works out to about $5,054 per week.

There's also $25 billion for public hospitals—on top of the Medicare urgent care clinics around the country. Everywhere you look, there's an urgent care clinic. Just in my area of Adelaide, we have the Norwood urgent care clinic, which is servicing many, many patients; we have the Albert Park care clinic on the western borders of the Adelaide electorate; and, on the northern borders of Gepps Cross, on Grand Junction Road, there is another urgent care clinic. They are all servicing people that need a doctor and that would normally end up in the emergency rooms waiting for hours and hours. Together, our housing reforms, our cheaper medicine and our bulk-billing rates that are going upwards—today there was a report of an increase of four per cent in bulk-billing—are measures to help battling Australians that are doing it tough.

There's been also much work in the electorate of Adelaide. In the budget, millions of dollars have been announced for infrastructure. Of course, without infrastructure—without money being spent on bridges, on roads, on crossings—we'd have a quagmire of traffic and a quagmire of people not being able to get from point A to point B. We'd have a quagmire of transport in people not being able to get quickly enough to railway yards, to ports et cetera. These are important investments. It's not just funding on paper. It's investment for our communities making our communities more productive and able to enjoy the benefits—to do it a little bit easier than what they have in the past. This is an investment into our communities, our infrastructure and our future.

At the heart of the budget is a recognition of one of the defining challenges of our time, and that is housing. I mentioned at the beginning of my speech how important it is. The budget delivers $2 billion for a new stream of housing support programs designed to help local governments and state utility providers deliver the infrastructure needed to support new housing. In other words, when new housing goes up, we need infrastructure and also other support structures for that new housing. We know that homes do not exist in isolation. They require a whole range of infrastructure around them for that particular community. They require roads, water, electricity and services to make them liveable. For South Australia, this means more than $130 million in funding that will unlock projects that would otherwise remain stalled. In my electorate, this investment is already making a real difference.

In the electorate of Adelaide, some of the works are taking place. Only last week I was at the North-South Corridor, which is going from the most northern suburbs to the southern suburbs. It cuts right through my electorate through South Road. We went down and saw the new cutter, which is digging the underground tunnels for motor vehicles that will be going underground from about Torrensville and West Hindmarsh in my electorate right through to Kurralta Park, where they'll be coming back up onto the surface. We saw the cutter being lowered into the ground. It's millions of dollars of work.

Also, by having the tunnels, we save a whole range of heritage listed buildings that are in my electorate, like the Queen of Angels Church, which is nearly 160 years old; the Thebarton Theatre, which is one of Australia's oldest theatres; and, of course, a whole range of schools, businesses et cetera. I'm very pleased that there was a decision made. The original decision wasn't to have tunnels, but, through an outcry from the residents and a campaign from all the residents in those suburbs of Mile End, Richmond, Torrensville, Hilton and West Hindmarsh, the previous government saw fit to work with the state government and ensure we have a tunnel, and that tunnel is taking place right now.

We've seen other works in my electorate on Sir Donald Bradman Drive and Marion Road in the West Torrens council area. We now see slipways. Sir Donald Bradman Drive is the main road that goes off into the airport that has thousands and thousands of motor vehicles, and with those slipways now it's become quicker and more convenient and there's more of a better traffic flow. Another bottleneck that was there for many, many years was on East Avenue, Grange Road and Holbrooks Road at Allenby Gardens, right on the border of Flinders Park. That's coming to fruition and nearly completed and, again, seeing the freeing up of transport. People are saving up to 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon. That's 20 minutes a day. Times that by five and that's a good hour and a half that could be spent with family instead of traffic.

One of the great things that I've campaigned on for a long, long time—since I was first elected in 2004—is for the overpass of the tram on Marion Road at Plympton. Once those shutters came down and the bells started ringing when a tram was going by, it would bank up for nearly a couple of kilometres at peak hour traffic. Now we've got an overpass over Marion Road allowing the traffic on Marion Road to free itself up.

There's also community infrastructure in my electorate, Karkungka reserve, where the National Servicemen’s RSL Sub-Branch is. They're getting brand new headquarters there for their activities and also for community use. The entire park is being rejuvenated with money from the federal government and the West Torrens local government. One of the great infrastructure community projects is the Western Youth Centre at Cowandilla, which I'm very proud of. Many sporting clubs affiliated with it use the grounds and the gymnasiums that are there.

The budget is important, as I said, especially for housing. I think housing is what we heard the other night is the government's focus—ensuring that people have a roof over their heads, that people can find premises and live the Australian dream as many have done. It was getting out of touch for a lot of people. You look back at the last 10 years, and there were no policies. There was nothing being instigated. In fact—I said it earlier today in this place—I was here when questions were being asked by the then Labor opposition about housing. I clearly recall the coalition government at the time saying: 'This really has nothing to do with us. It's a state issue.' In other words, they were wiping their hands of it. Therefore, there was inaction for well over 10 years and we're in the position that we're in today.

Those on the other side will try and say that it's migration and a whole range of things. The reality is that this country has always had migration, right through the turn of the century, back in the 1700s—right through. There's been constant migration, and we've managed to keep up. The reality is that we need more houses, and this government is acting to do so. When you think of migration—I think the intake last year was about 300,000. There were about 178,000 homes that were built. Do you think that each and every one of them requires one house? In fact, the majority of them are in student accommodation and don't get their visas unless they have accommodation before they get here. The furphy about immigration and housing—I just don't buy it.

Certainly, we need to keep an eye on it and ensure that we are keeping stock up with the growth of the population, and that's what hasn't been done for over 20 years. That's what hasn't been done and needs to be done. As I said, there was inaction for many, many years. I pointed out a few infrastructure projects and investments in my electorate that are already making a real difference. In fact, the HAFF and other programs that the Prime Minister has announced are making a huge difference. Just in my electorate, 918 new social and affordable homes are currently being built, are on the way to being built or have been completed. That's just my electorate. That's all through the Housing Australia Future Fund. Another 508 homes will be delivered very soon. These are homes that will provide security, dignity and stability for Australians who need it most.

When you speak to people who have secured one of these homes or have purchased their first home through the five per cent deposit scheme or through the equity program with the government, you can see the joy that they have that one of the steps in their lives has been completed. If you don't have a roof over your head, if you don't have shelter, it's very hard to concentrate on other things. Last week, when the Prime Minister was in my electorate and we visited the prospect project in the northern part of my electorate—where over 200 homes are being built and some have already been completed—we spoke to a young couple, Erin and Harry, who had purchased their very first home. You could see how it turned their entire lives around to have that security and stability that is required to go on and achieve bigger and better things. These policies are making a difference, and these homes will provide security, dignity and stability.

Through the Social Housing Accelerator program, another 133 social homes are being built just in my electorate of Adelaide. These are not just numbers; these are lives that are being turned around. These are lives that are changing because of the fact that they can now get a roof over their head. This could be a parent who can finally provide stability for their family. It could be an older Australian who will now be able to age with dignity or a young person given their first chance to build independence. A roof over someone's head is not a privilege. It is a basic human need. (Time expired)

Colin Boyce (Flynn, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution to the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027. To begin my contribution, I would like to quote Oliver Cromwell's speech to the English parliament that he delivered on 20 April 1653 because it is entirely relevant and exactly the way I feel about the government we have today and the way it has delivered its budget and the effect it will have on the Australian people. Cromwell said:

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.

Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God's help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do; I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place; go, get you out!

Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!

I'm not suggesting that every member opposite is deserving of Cromwell's wrath, but I do say this: if there was ever a budget that embodied arrogance, hypocrisy, broken promises and contempt for ordinary people, this is the budget.

We'll fast forward 373 years, and Australians are once again watching a government that has lost touch with the people that it was elected to serve. This budget is not a budget of aspiration. It is not a budget for families. It is not a budget for workers, pensioners, veterans or small-business owners. It is a budget of excuses. It is a budget that punishes people for trying to get ahead, and this budget tells younger Australians that the dream their parents enjoyed is no longer available to them. Whether it is a tradie trying to grow a business or a young couple trying to buy their first home, a veteran seeking treatment or a pensioner struggling to pay the bills, this budget makes it harder for all.

Labor's toxic taxes amount to intergenerational fraud. For decades, Australians were told that, if they worked hard, saved carefully and invested wisely, they could build security for themselves and their families. That was the Australian promise and the Australian dream. Older generations had access to affordable housing. They benefited from sensible tax settings, and they had the opportunity to invest, build wealth and create stability. Now younger Australians are being told that opportunity is no longer for you. Housing is already out of reach for many Australians. So what are young people doing? They are trying to be responsible. They are saving. They are investing in shares, ETFs, crypto assets and managed funds. They are delaying gratification in the hope that one day they might be able to own a home or build financial security. And what does the Labor government do? They punish them for it. Labor's changes to capital gains tax are not reform; they are an assault on aspiration. This government wants to impose one of the highest effective capital gains tax regimes in the developed world. It is a tax on savings, a tax on investment and a tax on ambition.

The worst part is that this does not even appear to have been properly thought through. Experts, economists and former Treasury officials are now warning that, under Labor's model, Australians could end up paying tax greater than their actual real-world profit. I think that's just absurd. A hardworking Australian could invest prudently, diversify their portfolio—exactly as every financial adviser recommends—and still end up worse off, because Labor's tax regime design ignores how ordinary investment actually works. The Prime Minister dismisses criticism as scare campaigns. He refuses to answer the most basic questions. Why should Australians pay tax on gains inflated by inflation while receiving little or no practical recognition for the losses elsewhere in their portfolios? Treasury appears to have modelled a fantasy investor who buys one perfect asset that only ever rises in value, and this is not what happens in real life. Real Australians own diversified portfolios. Some shares rise; others fall. Some years are good; others are difficult. Under Labor's system, diversification could actually punish investors. One analysis showed that a diversified $10,000 investment across the major banks generated a real gain of around $1,250. Yet, under Labor's proposal, the tax payable could exceed $1,800. In plain English, the tax could be bigger than the profit, and that is not fair; that is daylight robbery.

Let us be very clear. This will not only hurt the wealthy investors. It will hurt startups. It will hurt innovation. It will hurt small businesses seeking capital. It will hurt Australians trying to build retirement savings outside the pension system. Labor claims to support future economy while simultaneously taxing the very investment it creates. You do not fix toxic taxes with carve-outs and exemptions; you axe them. Australians deserve a tax system that rewards hard work, rewards savings, rewards risk taking and rewards enterprise. Instead, Labor offers envy, punishment and class warfare.

Then we come to what many Australians are increasingly describing as Labor's hidden death tax. Before the election, the Prime Minister, and the Treasurer, repeatedly assured Australians there would be no new taxes that targeted family inheritance or generational wealth transfers. Yet buried within the budget are measures that amount to a punitive 30 per cent tax burden on inherited superannuation balances and assets in certain circumstances. Australians work their entire lives to build something for their children and their grandchildren. They pay income tax, they pay company tax, they pay GST, they pay stamp duty, they pay fuel excise, and now, after a lifetime of their paying taxes, Labor wants one more bite of the apple—and that's on the day you die. When Labor run out of money, they come after yours—no truer words said.

Perhaps the most disgraceful element of this budget is the treatment of our veterans. The Labor government has imposed a $5,000 annual cap on allied health services for veterans, and this is shameful. Veterans rely on physiotherapy, psychology, occupational therapy and other allied health supports not as luxuries but as essential treatments for injuries sustained while serving our nation. Many veterans live with chronic pain, mobility limitations and psychological trauma directly connected to their service. For veterans with complex needs, $5,000 will not even come close to addressing the necessary care that they need. So what happens then? The treatment gets delayed, conditions deteriorate, families carry greater burdens, mental health worsens, and ultimately the public health system pays a greater price anyway. Australia makes a sacred promise to those who wear this nation's uniform. We ask them to sacrifice on our behalf, and in return we guarantee that, when they come home, we'll look after them. This cap undermines that promise. It sends a terrible message not only to veterans but to every young Australian considering a career in the Australian Defence Force. A nation that spends billions on ideological vanity projects should never claim it cannot afford to properly care for its veterans.

Older Australians are also being punished under this budget. Labor has slashed the private health insurance rebate for many seniors, reducing the rate of rebate support from as high as 32 per cent down to 24 per cent. The consequences are obvious: higher premiums, higher household costs and potentially thousands of older Australians abandoning private health cover altogether because they simply cannot afford it. That will place even greater strain on public hospitals that are already struggling. At a time when pensioners and retirees are battling rising electricity prices, rising grocery bills, rising insurance costs and rising rent, this government has decided to make health care more expensive for them too. Seniors who have done the right thing all their lives should not be punished for maintaining private health cover.

Nowhere is the failure of the budget more obvious than in regional Australia, and the people in my electorate of Flynn, in Central Queensland, have been abandoned. Labor's budget obliterates the fair go for regional communities while doubling down on an economically reckless rush towards a renewables-only future that is driving up power prices and undermining the viability of industry. Regional Australians are becoming collateral damage in Labor's ideological obsession with net zero. The Prime Minister promised lower power prices. Instead, Australians are paying more. He promised lower inflation, yet Australians are facing higher grocery bills, higher rents and higher mortgages. He promised transparency, and instead Australians received hidden taxes, accounting tricks and broken promises. Even Labor's own figures show falling disposable income per capita and declining real wages. Australians are working harder just to go backwards.

Regional Australia has also been hit with billions of dollars of infrastructure cuts. This budget cuts $6.15 billion from the Inland Rail; $4.7 billion from broader infrastructure spending; $103 million from the national water grid; nearly $192 million from drought resilience, pest management and regional trade programs; and over $21 million from regional communications funding. At the same time, Labor somehow found $3.8 billion for the Victorian government's Suburban Rail Loop, a project increasingly viewed as a political favour rather than a national priority. What message does this send to regional Australia? 'If you live in the bush, your infrastructure gets cut.'

Labor continues to spend extraordinary sums pursuing its net zero agenda while refusing to level with Australians on the real cost. This budget allocates another $18.2 billion towards net zero measures, bringing the total spending commitments to at least $80 billion, and that figure does not even include the hidden costs of renewable subsidies through schemes like the Capacity Investment Scheme. If the government is so proud of its agenda, why does the Treasury barely mention it? Why was net zero virtually absent from the budget speech? This is because Labor knows Australians are increasingly seeing the consequences: higher electricity prices, reduced energy reliability, pressure on manufacturing, pressure on mining, pressure on agriculture and pressure on household budgets. Australia should pursue practical environmental outcomes while protecting jobs, industry and affordability. Instead, Labor has embraced ideology over pragmatism.

This budget also fails to confront the pressures created by Labor's immigration settings. Australians are already struggling to find housing, access health care and secure child care, yet Labor continues to preside over historically high immigration numbers without the infrastructure or housing supply needed to support them. That places enormous strain on communities. Australians are a compassionate people, but they also respect responsible planning. A government cannot simultaneously claim to care about housing affordability while dramatically increasing demand without increasing supply.

This budget reveals something deeper than bad economics. It reveals a government that fundamentally misunderstands aspiration. Labor sees aspiration as something suspicious: 'If you start a business, we tax you. If you invest, we tax you. If you save, we tax you. If you inherit something from your parents, we're going to tax you. And, if you drive a truck, work in the mining industry or rely on affordable energy, we're going to regulate you into oblivion.' This government does not believe that prosperity is created by individuals and communities. It believes that prosperity belongs first to the government. This budget is not about building Australia stronger; it is about managing its decline. It asks Australians to expect less, own less, save less and aspire less. But Australians are better than that. Regional Australians are better than that. The people of Flynn are better than that. Australians do not want a government that punishes success and subsidises failure. This is an appalling budget. Words fail me.

Julie-Ann Campbell (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think it's so interesting that the member for Flynn decided to open up his grandiose speech with quotes from Oliver Cromwell. Specifically, when we think about the 'Rump Parliament' speech of Oliver Cromwell, what was that all about? It was ostensibly about the frustration that Cromwell had at the time with the parliament's endless debate and talk and lack of action and progress at the other end. I think it is so ironic that the member for Flynn decides to bring this up, because the member for Flynn is part of a party that talks a lot about tax cuts but voted against a tax cut. The member for Flynn is part of a party that talks a lot about housing and getting housing for our young people, yet has absolutely no plan to get a house to a young person. On top of that, when they were in government, they didn't even have a housing minister for most of the time. The member for Flynn talks a lot about cost of living, but he's part of a political party that has voted against every single cost-of-living measure that the Albanese Labor government has put forward. I think what the member for Flynn needs, when we talk about that speech in particular, is to note that ye are in need of some great self-reflection.

Nearly two weeks ago we stood in this chamber and heard the Treasurer handing down the 2026-27 budget. It's a budget that delivers what Australia needs right now. It's responsible, it implements real reform and it's about making sure the economy works better for more Australians, not just a few. It doesn't matter where you go in my local electorate on Brisbane's south side, whether it's a barbecue in Tarragindi, whether it's on the doors in Annerley, whether it's an event in Sunnybank, whether it's on a street corner in Acacia Ridge, everyone raises the same challenges that they and their families are facing again and again and again. Those challenges are housing and cost of living.

Labor is providing more cost-of-living relief for households while also setting up for the future. We're focused on increasing productivity, improving the tax system, making the housing market fairer and strengthening the budget so that it's sustainable over the long term. That's what these times demand. The challenges facing Australians—issues such as the younger generation trying to access housing and being able to realise the dream that so many of us had before this moment, and the rising costs at the checkout and at the bowser—need to be addressed, and they need to be addressed now. That's why we're rolling out new tax cuts for workers. That's why we're helping more people get into their own homes, investing in Medicare and making it easier to build, run a business and, indeed, invest. All of this is about creating a stronger, fairer economy that gives more people a chance to get ahead. It addresses the key issues that the constituents of Moreton raise with me: health, housing, cost of living.

Which free-of-charge service in Moreton has been visited over 16,000 times in just the last 18 months? The answer is the Medicare urgent care clinic at Oxley. I know firsthand how incredibly useful this service is. Our toddler has been there numerous times, each time receiving timely, thorough and reassuring attention from the medical team there. Thanks to this budget, this crucial southside service is here to stay, and so are the other 134 Medicare urgent care clinics around this nation. An additional $1.8 billion will be invested over five years from 2025-26, and over $579 million a year ongoing from 2030-31, to keep Medicare urgent care clinics open and free for the Australian people. Why is this so important? Because Medicare urgent care clinics provide free walk-in care for urgent health issues, with no appointment needed. They're open seven days a week with extended hours, making it easier for people to get help when they need it most. The medical teams at these clinics can treat a wide range of non-life threatening conditions and industries that still need prompt attention such as cuts, infections or sprains.

And it's not just Oxley, on the south side of Brisbane; the member for Griffith and I held a barbecue in Annerley just a couple of weeks ago to bring people together to get a taste of the Cornwall Street urgent care clinic. That brought in families with their stories of how they had been helped by being able to access local urgent care at zero cost with just their Medicare card. They take the pressure off hospital emergency departments so hospitals can focus on treating the most serious and life-threatening cases. Another two urgent Medicare clinics are due to open by the end of next month. Of these clinics, 47 are in rural and regional Australia, meaning that when all clinics are open four out of five Australians will be able to access a clinic within just a 20-minute drive—and, remember, when you get there, all you need is that little green card.

Speaking of Medicare cards, there are now 26 fully bulk-billed general practices in my local seat of Moreton. This is an increase of 12 since Labor's historic investment to bolster Medicare. Whether you're going to the Beaudesert Road surgery in Moorooka or to the GP just across the road from Chardons Corner, in Annerley, there are clinics that were formerly mixed-billing that are now fully bulk-billing because of the investment the Albanese Labor government has made.

Quarterly data released today indicates that the national GP bulk-billing rate was 81.9 per cent for the January to March quarter—an increase of nearly five per cent from the same time last year. This is having an absolutely real impact in our local communities, and there are now over 3,800 Medicare bulk-billing practices around Australia.

Australians have also been able to access cheaper medicines. As at the end of April there have been over 2.7 million cheaper scripts in Moreton alone since Labor rolled out its cheaper-medicines initiative. Just the other day I got to visit one of the pharmacies where those $25 scripts are being handed out, the Urunga TerryWhite Chemmart. Not only do you get greeted by a smile; when you put your card across the pharmacy, if it's a PBS medicine all you'll ever pay is 25 bucks.

This budget invests an additional $5.9 billion to list new medicines on the PBS. This includes treatments for serious and ongoing conditions such as cystic fibrosis, chronic kidney disease and a range of cancers, helping ensure patients can access the medicines they need without facing overwhelming costs. I got to visit one of them in Corinda. The pharmacist in Corinda showed me Yaz, and she told me that, before Yaz was on the PBS, people used to pay 80 bucks for it—and now it's down to 25 bucks, an enormous saving and one of the first times in a long time that that kind of medication has gone onto the PBS. It also includes permanently reducing the cost of COVID-19 oral antiviral medicines, making it easier and more affordable for people to get timely treatment when they need it. Since 1 July 2022, the Albanese Labor government has funded 437 new or amended PBS medicines. Again, this is a real example of proper cost-of-living support.

When it comes to housing, this budget is squarely aimed at getting more homes built and making it easier for Australians, particularly for young Australians, to get into the housing market. We're investing $2 billion in a new local infrastructure fund to help councils and utilities deliver the basics that we need for new housing—for things like roads, water, power and sewerage, which will unlock up to 65,000 homes over the next decade. When you speak to people in my electorate, it's not just young people who are concerned about housing; it's families who are trying to get into their first home. It's older people who are worried that their kids will never realise the dream that they were able to have when they were growing up. It's people who have had to start over and now need to get back into the market. That's why we're making sure that more homes are available for Australians by extending the ban on foreign investors buying existing homes to mid-2029. For renters, we're continuing to work with states and territories to strengthen renters' rights, and, importantly, there's also targeted support for those doing it the toughest.

At the same time, Labor is making changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions, which are expected to help about 75,000 more Australians to buy their own home over the next decade. Changing the way that negative gearing and the capital gains tax work will make the housing system fairer and will make it more balanced, because, frankly, the interaction between the housing market and the tax system is broken. Right now, it ain't working, and we need to do something about it. If the system isn't getting outcomes for people to be able to get into their own homes, we need to take action, and this is a government that takes that responsibility very seriously. Changing the way negative gearing and the capital gains tax work will make the housing system fairer and will make it more balanced. Changes to the CGT will see the current arrangements replaced with cost base indexation and a minimum 30 per cent tax rate on capital gains. This is something that is needed now, because, when you talk to people in our communities, they know that housing is an issue now. It comes in response to long-term trends in the housing market and the fact that we know that there are significant supply issues over decades and decades. This is about making sure that we are not only addressing the issues in our tax system but also backing it up with investment in long-term housing to fix this issue. What didn't fix it when the coalition were in government was not having a housing minister. What didn't fix it when the coalition were in government was failing to build homes when we had the opportunity. And what didn't fix it was voting against a tax cut for every taxpaying Australian. The reforms are designed to address these pressures and to improve access for young Australians.

If I had to summarise Labor's approach to fixing the housing crisis we received from those opposite, I would say that it's about building more homes, I would say that it's about building them more quickly, I would say that it's about making the system fairer, and I would say that it's about ensuring that more Australians have a safe and secure place to live.

Before I conclude my speech, there is one other very important local element of the budget which I'd like to highlight. Boundary Road in my electorate of Moreton is a key east-west artery. It links Archerfield, with its concentration of manufacturing, logistics and transport companies, with the residents and myriad of small businesses of Robertson and Sunnybank—and then on through to the M1 motorway. Smack-bang in-between those two suburbs lies Coopers Plains. Boundary Road takes drivers across a level crossing with three train tracks. Approximately 200 trains on the Beenleigh and Gold Coast lines pass through that crossing daily. Each time the boom gates are lowered, drivers, cyclists and pedestrians endure lengthy delays, particularly during the morning and afternoon peak traffic times. In my community, we are absolutely sick of it. This crossing has regularly been identified as one of the most problematic in Queensland. Train drivers ranked it among the state's worst level crossings. As far back as 2012, it was identified as one of the top 6 priority crossings requiring attention, and then, in 2019, the Queensland Rail Australian Level Crossing Assessment Model ranked it within the three most dangerous crossings in the state. I, myself, remember going to that crossing, holding placards and campaigning for it to be fixed. This is borne out in the incident record. Twenty-eight boom strikes were recorded at the site between 2009 and 2016, and a total of 101 incidents were documented between 2004 and 2011.

So you can see that local residents and the thousands of drivers who go across that crossing daily have been waiting for a long time for this to be resolved. The federal government already committed $179.5 million in 2022 to build an overpass, and I'm very proud that in the 2026-27 budget, it includes an additional $99.7 million so that the Queensland state government can deliver this vital project. It's not about infrastructure in and of itself. It's about making everyday life easier and getting my community home to their families safer and faster.

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House calls on the Government to implement a 25 per cent gas export tax".

This budget fails the Australian people in many ways. I'm not saying there's no good in it. What I'm saying is it fails to meet the scale of people's needs, the needs of the moment and the boldness required to get Australia back on track. The biggest symbol of this failure is the government's decision to not include a tax on gas exports. This failure is not just significant economically; it's a failure because of what it represents. It's a failure because it shows a clear disdain from our political class towards people's clearly expressed wishes. Some people call this campaign for a gas tax populism. I prefer to call it democracy, but it seems our political class finds democracy a suspicious concept.

The failure goes deeper. The failure to listen to everyday people accelerates the decline in trust in government. This failure is a gift to One Nation. If Labor keeps failing like this, they will deliver One Nation into government. Do you think One Nation's rise will just go away? Even if they collapse tomorrow, something else will rise in its place because the conditions for One Nation's rise continue to be created by our out-of-touch political establishment.

The status quo currently defended by the Albanese Labor Party is not working for everyday people. People are starting to reject it. People are right to reject it. They are not being listened to. They are finding their lives getting tougher and tougher year on year. There needs to be a break with this unrepresentative, pro-corporate, out-of-touch status quo to turn the page really decisively on decades of deregulation, privatisation and corporate tax avoidance.

When people are feeling ignored by the political system, when they're feeling the squeeze, while they see the wealth of the top 1 per cent soar, you don't rush to defend that status quo. You don't just tinker around the edges. You say, 'Yes, it is time for real change. It's time to make the one per cent and the big corporations pay their fair share and build a society where everyone can get ahead.' That's the only way to bring people together on a different politics, other than nation's politics of division and of hate.

What's to be done? We could start right now. What better way to demonstrate a willingness to break with the status quo than to back this amendment to the budget, to implement a tax on gas corporations? What better way to show a willingness to not follow politics as usual than to break with party lines and support this eminently sensible and positive reform that people are demanding? So I'm imploring, cross the floor! Come on, just cross the floor and vote for a gas tax. I want to urge members of the Labor Party, the Liberal Party, the Nats and One Nation to all cross the floor. Their voters will reward them for it. I want members in this chamber to know that their voters actually want a gas tax. Their voters want to see them side with the people, not with vested interests.

I'm being completely serious. I'm imploring members of this House to not put their party's political line ahead of what their voters are clearly calling on them to do. Their party's political line has been set by the gas lobby, not even by their party's membership or even their caucus. There are Labor voters, Liberal voters, One Nation voters all out there wanting members of this House to step up and stop gas corporations from ripping us all off. Imagine being able to go to the Australian people and say, 'We're raising $17 billion extra a year; what would you like to spend it on?' There's nothing stopping members of this chamber, only the entrenched power of the corporate lobbying machine over your parties. So I'm calling on members in this chamber to cross the floor and show Australian people, their voters, that they're not just cogs in a political machine.

Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Nicolette Boele (Bradfield, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Jo Briskey (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Earlier this month, the Treasurer delivered the most ambitious budget that we have seen in decades. It's a budget that balances responsible economic management with an eye to futureproofing our economy, an economy that works for everyday Australians, not the other way around. As a nation, we find ourselves, once again, in the midst of a global crisis. They, unfortunately, are becoming more frequent. For older Australians, global shocks and once-in-a-generation events were just that: once in a generation. They didn't occur every few years, and global economies were given the time to recover. The world we live in has changed. It is less stable, more divided and increasingly unpredictable.

When I speak to young people in my community, they show a readiness to meet the world as it is and carry it forward, but what they do not accept is the economic burden that has been placed on them at the expense of their future. They do not accept house prices that are eight times their annual income. They do not accept being locked out of the housing market while others own upwards of 10 properties. And they do not accept that the status quo is working.

For almost all of us in this chamber, the Australian dream of owning your own home did become a reality. We saved over a few years to buy our first home that was, on average, about three times our annual salary. For me and my husband, it was in 2009 when Ravi and I saved up a little and, with a little help from my in-laws, purchased our first home. It was a small unit that would provide us with a safety net and the stability that we needed and wanted to start a family. I look back fondly at that moment in time, that sense of hope mixed with dread but also the celebration of achieving such a huge life milestone—a milestone that so many young Australians jokingly now dismiss as just not being possible for them. But the reality is that it is no joke. Young people dismiss it not just because of house prices but because, for some in my community who have saved up enough for a deposit and jumped through all the hoops, they go to the auction and put an offer on, only to be outpriced by property investors who have tax breaks on their side.

This Labor government has refused to accept the status quo. That is why we are making the tough calls, setting out an ambitious plan to level the playing field for younger generations. Going forward, we are limiting negative gearing for residential property so it can be used only for new builds. Our negative gearing changes put homeowners first and will help more Australians get a foothold in the housing market. This is why this budget is a truly aspirational budget, because what is more aspirational than owning your own home? We aspire for the people in my community—the single parents who want stability, the young couples seeking to start a family, the students looking to the future—who stop me in the street and raise the issue of housing. This reform is about making it easier for them to buy their first home.

Despite the misinformation from those opposite, Australians who currently negatively gear or own an investment property will see no change in their arrangements. This Labor government is, and has always been, pro investment. That is why, going forward, new investors can still negatively gear their properties, just on new builds. If you're a younger person who can afford to invest in housing, you can still do it on new properties. If you look to the edges of our cities and our regional areas, the opportunities for investment are there. We are pro-investment because we not only want Australians to be able to invest and build their own wealth but also, at the same time, want to see them invest in the wealth of our nation.

Along with changes to negative gearing, we're also changing the tax treatment of capital gains so that it operates as originally intended, helping to ensure investment flows where it is most productive. Returning it to indexation will mean that, in the future, only real capital gains are subject to tax, supporting investment in assets like medium-density housing. An important thing to note is that these reforms will grandfather gains made before 1 July next year. The 30 per cent minimum tax rate on capital gain profits is about making sure everyone pays their fair share.

This budget aims to level the playing field and also continues to build on our housing agenda, which is ambitious, as it has to be, because our housing crisis is 40 years in the making. That is why this budget also seeks to increase our housing supply, with an additional $2 billion investment into the infrastructure needed to build 65,000 new homes. This is on top of the other housing supply measures that we have already delivered since coming into government, like those through the Housing Australia Future Fund. The HAFF has helped to deliver over 1,000 new social and affordable homes in my community alone, changing people's lives forever.

Australians were given a glimpse into the opposition's plans for this country. Australians were given more cheap rhetoric from those opposite. They were told that migrant communities are their enemy and that, under the coalition, the housing status quo will be entrenched. That is in stark contrast to Labor's plans for the future. Our plan is to build Australia's future, and, in order to do that, that plan must be centred around fairness. Medicare is a symbol of fairness and is integral to the prosperity of our nation, which is why this year's budget once again had strengthening Medicare front and centre. As cost-of-living pressures continue to put stress on local households, we are committed to providing real cost-of-living relief across the board. We promised to make health care more affordable, and we are delivering on that promise. The Treasurer outlined in his budget night address that the Albanese Labor government is making a record investment into health care, making free Medicare urgent care clinics a permanent fixture of our healthcare network while continuing to invest in cheaper medicines and more bulk-billing.

Australian families remember all too well what those opposite did to Medicare. They remember that bulk-billing was gutted. They remember cuts to our public hospitals. They remember the cost of medicines increasing while their wages stagnated. Those opposite put a price tag on every Australian's health. Their dream is not for a stronger Medicare but for a relaxation of it, something more akin to an American-style healthcare system, where the health care that you get is what you can afford, leaving many working people behind. When those opposite talk of decreased spending and budget savings, what they're actually saying is they'll cut Medicare. And it won't be just Medicare; it'll be Services Australia, fee-free TAFE, our three-day early learning guarantee—cutting the essential services and cost-of-living relief that working people rely on. How do we know this? Because they've voted against every single cost-of-living measure our government has brought forward to this place.

Thankfully, for many in my electorate, this Labor government takes a different view. Things are tough right now. We know this and we are determined to continue to ease cost-of-living pressures. That is why, from 1 July this year, every Australian taxpayer will receive a tax cut, and we're introducing an instant tax deduction of $1,000—no receipts needed. And there will be another tax cut next year too, together with taking an extra $250 off working people's tax bill permanently. Those opposite have dismissed these tax measures. They are more interested in saying no to genuinely trying to help Australian families, and, when they say no, they are saying it to families in my community who are saving thousands thanks to this government making PBS medicines cheaper; they are saying it to students, who now pay lower repayments on their student debt; and they are saying it to women, who are benefiting from the largest investment in women's health care in decades.

The conversations I'm having in my community about this budget are positive. They aren't focused on the misinformation or the scare tactics of those opposite. My community isn't buying this racist nonsense that immigrants are making their lives harder or causing costs to rise. What those opposite can't comprehend is that my community is the vibrant place it is because of immigration. It is the beneficiary of migration—Italian, Greek, Vietnamese, Somali and many more who have planted their roots in Maribyrnong, bringing with them the cultures and skills that have come to define our part of Melbourne. Our community benefits from those skills in health, early education, aged care and jobs that keep our communities quietly moving, like cleaning, delivery drivers and many more.

My community sees through the coalition's message of hatred and division because they know it's just more cheap politics from a party simply trying to fight to compete with One Nation. They also know that our economy is under a lot of pressure from global shocks, not because of grandparents, parents or friends who have migrated to Australia, seeking to build a better life and contribute to our nation's future. It is the same old tired playbook, and my community is fed up with it.

This budget is about creating opportunities. It is pro-aspiration for people seeking to enter the housing market and invest in their future, especially for young people. It is pro-worker for those families feeling the pinch and in need of tax relief. It is pro-investment for individuals and businesses looking to build their futures with shares and portfolios. This Albanese Labor government is not shying away from the difficult reforms that are necessary to build our nation's future. We are proud of what we have delivered, but we know there is more work to do. Good governments listen to their constituents, they do not alienate parts of their communities, and they do not pit them against each other.

Instead, they seek to unite. They seek to deliver the reforms and services that the moment demands. The status quo may be what those opposite wish to entrench, but, if they actually spoke to young, working-class Australians, they would know that their white-hot rage is directed squarely at the status quo. It's just not working. The status quo is stacked against them; that is why this government has changed course, why we are delivering generational tax reforms and why we are determined to level the playing field.

Levelling the playing field is just what we're going to do, on top of delivering real cost-of-living relief for Aussie families. When the Prime Minister says that he wants a country where no-one is held back and no-one is left behind, this budget is an example of those words in practice. It is pro-aspiration; it is pro-investment for all Australians, not just a select few.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the appropriation bills before the House and to put on record what people in Capricornia and across regional Australia are telling me plainly. They are doing it tough, and they've been asked to pay more while getting less in return. Appropriation bills are not just paperwork; they are a statement of a government's priorities—what it funds, what it cuts and who it chooses to back. On the evidence of this budget and what flows from it, the message to the regions is, once again, 'You are not a priority.'

In Capricornia, families are still dealing with power bills, groceries, fuel and insurance that keep climbing. Small businesses are juggling overheads that rise faster than turnover, and primary producers are facing higher input costs and uncertainty. For many small and family businesses, there is another layer of uncertainty in this budget: the proposed changes to discretionary family trusts. These are not abstract arrangements for accountants in the city, they are structures used by many family run businesses—farms and local operators—to manage risk, plan for succession and keep cash flowing through the business.

A proposed 30 per cent minimum tax on trust income from 1 July 2028 would reduce flexibility, hit those who legitimately use trusts to support family members in the business and force many small operators to spend time and money restructuring instead of employing staff, investing in equipment or growing their enterprise. For regional Australia, where so many businesses are family businesses, this is not just a tax change, it is another pressure on the people who are already carrying so much of the load.

The capital gains tax changes announced in this budget also raise real concerns for younger Australians trying to break into the housing market because they do not just affect property, they also affect shares and ETFs that many first home buyers use to build a deposit. At a time when saving for a first home is already hard enough, people who are doing the right thing by investing carefully and trying to get ahead should not be hit with another barrier on the path to homeownership. And that's the test we should apply to these appropriation bills: Do they provide real relief? Do they invest in the fundamentals that grow regional economies—roads, freight, water security, reliable energy and a fair go? The regions don't ask for special treatment; we ask for fair treatment. We ask for the government to recognise that regional Australia generates the wealth and exports that keep this country going.

Cost-of-living pressures are real, and they are hitting hard in Capricornia. Australians don't need to be told the economy is under strain; they feel it every day. When their fuel bills jump, when their weekly groceries cost more or when their insurance renewals are unaffordable, they don't need Labor to hold a press conference to explain it. Regional communities feel these pressures even more because we rely on transport and freight and because we have fewer alternatives, fewer services nearby, longer driving distances and industries that depend on fuel and logistics.

When budgets tighten, the pain is not theoretical. It shows up in delayed medical appointments, cancelled apprenticeships, postponed upgrades, reduced operating hours and small businesses deciding not to take on extra staff. That is why the budget and the appropriations that implement it must be judged on whether they help families keep more of what they earn and whether they strengthen the productive capacity of the economy, especially outside the capitals.

If there is one thing that consistently holds Capricornia back, it's not a lack of potential; it's a lack of infrastructure investment and the habit of treating regional projects as optional extras. Ahead of this budget, I said clearly that Capricornia's roads remain a top priority, including major freight and commuter routes that need ongoing federal support to improve safety, resilience and efficiency. We need more investment in the Bruce Highway, the beef roads, Peak Downs Highway and the local road links that our communities rely on every day. These roads are not luxuries; they are arteries of the regional economy, moving produce, supplies, workers, tourists and freight. When road funding is delayed, regional communities feel it immediately.

That is why decisions like pushing back major beef corridor upgrades are so damaging. In Capricornia, that means communities are left waiting longer for safer roads, better freight efficiency and stronger supply chains, even though these roads carry high-value commodities and support some of the nation's most productive industries. I've also said that the Rockhampton Ring Road will make a real difference, but it must be matched with proper investment in the surrounding connections so that the whole region benefits.

Yet regional Australia is again being told to accept cuts and delay, while multibillion-dollar city projects surge ahead. This imbalance is not just unfair; it's economically reckless, because regional infrastructure is what lifts national productivity. The Nationals leader, Queensland senator Matthew Canavan, has pointed to the scale of the impact on the regions, including by claimed cuts such as $6.15 billion from Inland Rail, $4.7 billion from infrastructure spending and $103 million from the National Water Grid alongside other reductions affecting regional communities. Whether you live in Rockhampton, Yeppoon, Sarina, the Pioneer Valley, Clermont or Moranbah, you can see the consequences—projects that take longer, corridors that remain dangerous, freight that costs more and communities that are expected to do with less.

Central Queensland is powered by industries that feed the nation and drive exports—agriculture, resources, manufacturing and tourism. Capricornia is one of Australia's powerhouse electorates, and the scale of its contribution should never be underestimated. From our mining communities to our agriculture sector, from our manufacturing base to our tourism operators, this region generates enormous economic value for Queensland and the nation. If we are serious about resilience, we must back the people and industries that provide it.

That's why it is so concerning to see that the agriculture budget has been reduced and the key programs for pest and disease preparedness and drought support have been cut back. The shadow minister for agriculture has claimed that the 2026-27 budget includes more than $190 million in cuts to agriculture programs, a $52 million cut to the Future Drought Fund and reductions affecting pest and disease preparedness and invasive species management. Now, whatever side of politics you are on, the principle should be straightforward: you don't strengthen food security by reducing preparedness and you don't build resilience by walking away from coordinated biosecurity and pest programs. In Capricornia and across regional Queensland, producers are already managing feral animals, weeds, seasonal pressures and global volatility. If government wants to talk about resilience, the appropriations should match that rhetoric.

One of the most frustrating patterns we see is the removal or winding back of programs that deliver outcomes locally. In Capricornia, we've seen exactly what these programs can achieve. Through regional funding, projects such as Multicap's Rockhampton service were able to move forward with specialist, affordable and accessible housing for people living with disability, something our region had been crying out for. We have seen investment help deliver the Fitzroy Community Hospice in Rockhampton, a vital end-of-life care service for Central Queensland families. We have also seen support for projects like the Rockhampton Museum of Art, upgrade to Collinsville's telecommunications and water security investment through Yeppoon's recycled water augmentation. These are not abstract line items in a budget. They are real projects that improve lives, strengthen communities and create local jobs. That is why I called for the budget to restore confidence in regional Australia by backing local councils and community organisations with strong, targeted funding programs.

Capricornia's future depends on investment that strengthens our capacity to build, move and export. That means backing projects that expand our industrial and logistics capability—not just announcing them and walking away. I specifically called for support for projects like the Rockhampton Airport bay 7 expansion and freight hub because it backs local jobs, strengthens exports and opens up opportunities for Central Queensland. With growth in domestic and military aircraft movements and the prospect of increased defence activity in the region, infrastructure at Rockhampton Airport needs to keep up with the pace.

The same is true for the broader opportunity in our region. Coalition investment in Rookwood Weir has opened the door to agriculture growth and future private investment, but that growth must be matched by the freight, storage and enabling infrastructure needed to turn potential into long-term economic opportunity. I make the broader point that Capricornia contributes so much to the national economy. We deserve to see that recognised with strong investment in the regions. Appropriation bills should reflect that. Funding should follow economic contribution and national interests, not postcode politics.

I want to be constructive about what should happen from here. First, if the government is serious about cost-of-living relief, it should prioritise measures that make a tangible difference for families and small businesses in the regions, because pressures are still rising; second, we need genuine, sustained investment in regional road safety and freight corridors, including the Bruce Highway and key regional connectors, not stop-start spending; third, we must treat water and agriculture resilience as core national priorities, because food security and biosecurity are not optional; fourth, energy and fuel security must be approached with practicality and realism, because regional industries rely on reliability, not slogans; and, fifth, we need to restore and strengthen programs that empower local councils and community groups to deliver the infrastructure and services that communities actually need. These are not radical requests. These are the basics of governing well for a country as large and diverse as Australia.

I will always back Capricornia—the workers, the small businesses, the farmers, the volunteers, the manufacturers, the tourism operators, the resource communities and the families who keep our regions moving. I will back the communities that have fought for better roads, stronger local services, community infrastructure, water security and the investment needed to keep regional economies growing, and I will continue to stand up for the principle that regions like Capricornia, which contribute so much to the national economy, deserve more than promises. They deserve practical support and their fair share of investment. Before the budget, I made it clear what Capricornia needed: real cost-of-living relief and targeted investment in the roads, infrastructure and industries that keep Central Queensland strong. My message to the government is simple: if you want the regions to keep powering the nation, then fund the regions like they deserve.

Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've had many conversations in my community in Melbourne with young people, with their parents and with their grandparents who want to know that the promise that has been there for them and the promise that has been there for previous generations—that if you work hard you will get the opportunity to have a secure roof over your head—will be there for the generations to come. But the reality is that, right now, too many young Australians are being priced out of homeownership. House prices have risen 400 per cent over the past two decades or so. They've gone from four to eight times incomes over the past 20 years, and ownership is down seven percentage points for young people. Just 44 per cent of Australians aged 25 to 34 own a home of their own.

That obviously has serious consequences for these young people, but it also has consequences that don't just affect them but affect all of us. The reality is that when a community is filled with people who can't see that the promise of their hard work is a pathway to a secure roof over their head for them and their family, the result is that we have a community that is increasingly divided. We already see some of the effects of that inequality and lack of opportunity in the divisive politics which is playing out in countries overseas at the moment. Indeed, it seems to be a sort of politics that those opposite—the Liberals and Nationals under the watchful gaze and resurgent popularity of One Nation—seem very keen to bring to Australia.

This is not how our government sees the future of Australia. In contrast, our government is focused on levelling the playing field for first home buyers. We are investing in fairness, in opportunity for all and in ensuring that more working families have the opportunity to get ahead. These bills give effect to a budget focused on what matters most to Australians, helping with the pressures people are facing right now, while also building a stronger, fairer and more resilient future.

This budget recognises the reality Australians are living through. Families are still feeling pressure at the checkout. Mortgage holders have faced the impact of higher interest rates. Renters and first home buyers are under enormous strain. Global uncertainty, from the conflict overseas to instability in energy markets and supply chains, continues to place pressure on prices here at home. So these bills deliver practical cost-of-living relief. They strengthen Medicare, they support housing affordability and they invest in Australia's long-term economic resilience.

I know that many young people in my community are working hard and saving carefully, but they still find themselves unable to buy their own home. They're turning up to auctions only to find themselves outbid by investors. The reality is that they've been priced out because of a system that has given people who already have a foothold in the property ladder access to support that new homebuyers don't have. Labor believes young Australians deserve the opportunity to buy a home in the communities that they grew up in. I hear this often from people in the suburbs of north-east Melbourne that I represent; they want to know that their kids have the opportunity that they had, and that they will be able to live in the beautiful communities that we call home and provide for their families there.

We on this side of the parliament believe that governments have a responsibility to tackle the structural barriers that are locking a generation out of homeownership. I think the people in my community understand this, and they do see our reforms as an important step towards improving intergenerational equity in both the economy and the housing market. I do also understand that there are some people who have concerns about these changes, and I am concerned that at the moment there is a lot of misinformation about the budget that is being spread around. The reality is that our government has backed and will continue to back small business. We will continue to back innovation and aspiration. These are of course very important Australian things. We will back hardworking Australians as well as reform the tax system to make it easier for people to get into secure housing.

We are also continuing our efforts to build more housing. This budget also continues Labor's investments in social and affordable housing. Locally, we are already seeing the impact of these investments. In Rosanna, 45 new social and affordable homes have just been completed. It was great to join the Prime Minister and Minister O'Neil last week to see these new homes for local residents right on the railway line there, providing much-needed housing to people and families at risk of homelessness and key workers that we need in our community. They are a fantastic investment for us locally. More homes are being built in Ivanhoe, Heidelberg and Greensborough. In Heidelberg West you can see the cranes in the sky, as our government is currently working with the Victorian government to deliver 104 new homes as part of the Bell-Bardia estate development.

This is work our government is undertaking because we understand that this is crucial to Australians now and into the future. It is work that was neglected by those opposite during the decade they were in power. During my time as the member for Jagajaga when those opposite were in power, I certainly was not able to visit new social and affordable housing being built in our community. This is a challenge that Labor has taken up, understanding that we need to level the playing field for new homebuyers and that we need more housing supply and more social and affordable housing. This is what Labor is doing.

We're also getting on with the job because we understand that we have a responsibility to deliver now, helping Australians through difficult times while also building for the future. This is in very clear contrast to those opposite, whose policies are clearly now being driven by their fear of One Nation and what it means for their chances at the next election. The opposition leader's budget reply made it clear that he and his party are not interested in levelling the playing field for young Australians looking to buy their home. Instead, the opposition leader borrowed and leant into divisive politics, threatening hardworking migrants in Australia with removal of their access to government services and support.

These are people who have helped build, and continue to help build, our country. They are part of our communities, and they are being told by the Leader of the Opposition and those who sit with him—and, of course, his One Nation inspired policies—that they are not worthy of support. At the same time, the opposition leader and the Liberals are backing more dirty, expensive coal. They're opposing the clean energy transition, and they're standing against the very housing programs that are helping to deliver more homes for Australians. We know that those opposite's, the Liberals', policies would leave Australians paying more for energy while also missing out on the jobs, investment and industries of the future.

It is really concerning that, alongside One Nation, the Liberals have now become a part of a dysfunctional coalition that is built on grievance and division, not real solutions. This is not the party of Menzies. This is not their grand legacy. This is dog whistling, leaning into the lowest common denominator and pulling Australians away from the future that they should have. While Labor is focused on building more homes, strengthening Medicare and easing cost-of-living pressures, the Liberals and One Nation are offering more delay, more division and higher costs for local families.

This government very clearly supports hardworking Australians. From 1 July, every Australian taxpayer will receive more tax cuts. Working Australians will receive an additional, permanent tax cut worth $250. We're also introducing a new $1,000 instant tax deduction without receipts, making it easier for working people to claim the deductions they are entitled to. Alongside this, we've been cutting fuel taxes to help ease the pressure every time Australians fill up at the petrol bowser. These are practical measures designed to make a real difference in people's lives. But, as I said, these bills before us are not only about immediate relief; they are also about strengthening Australia's long-term resilience in an increasingly uncertain world.

To better protect Australia from global shocks, our government is investing in our energy future, including in reliable sovereign renewables. We will establish a $3.2 billion Australian fuel security reserve and strengthen our national fuel security by increasing Australia's diesel and jet fuel reserves. We're also supporting the implementation of a domestic gas reserve where LNG producers will be required to reserve 20 per cent of exports for the domestic market. These are important reforms that will help put downward pressure on domestic gas prices and better shield Australians from global price volatility. Australians should not continue paying the price for instability overseas.

Some of the most important investments in this budget are in Medicare. As ever, Labor is the party of Medicare because we believe health care should depend on your Medicare card and not your credit card. We are making Medicare urgent care clinics a permanent feature of our health system in this budget. That means locals can continue to access urgent but non-emergency care without waiting hours in a busy emergency department and without paying hundreds of dollars out of pocket. In Jagajaga, these Medicare urgent care clinics are already making a difference. The Heidelberg Medicare Urgent Care Clinic has now seen more than 45,000 patients since opening in 2023. It's actually one of the busiest clinics in the country.

The new Eltham Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, which opened in December last year, has already supported more than 5,000 visits from local families needing urgent health care close to home. I visited that clinic last Friday with the member for Eltham, my colleague Vicki Ward, and they were telling me there how the clinic has become such an important piece of the local healthcare infrastructure. It is very busy on the weekends at the moment, with football injuries and all that that brings in. But what a difference to local families to have that support, to have that access to urgent care when they need it close to home without having to wait at a hospital emergency department.

Our budget is also supporting our public hospitals, including our local Austin Hospital, and we continue our work to strengthen bulk-billing and to make medicines cheaper. More GP clinics in our community are now bulk-billing as a result of our increased support. We now have 15 clinics locally who are bulk-billing patients—eight more since our changes. We've capped PBS medicines at $25 and at just $7.70 for concession card holders, meaning more than 2.5 million cheaper scripts have been filled since our cheaper-medicines changes.

As I've said, these changes don't happen by accident; they happen because Labor fundamentally believes in Medicare and because Labor supports Medicare. When we are in government, this is what we do. We make sure that the benefits of Australia are available to all Australians, that the healthcare that people should be able to get depends on their Medicare card and not on their credit card.

These bills deliver cost-of-living relief. They strengthen Medicare, they support housing affordability and they invest in Australia's long-term resilience in an uncertain world. I know how important these investments are right now and will continue to be to my local community. I know what it means when a local family can access free, urgent health care close to home. I know what it means when a young person gets a fairer shot at buying their first home. And I know what it means when governments invest in the communities they represent. Ultimately, budgets are about people and about the types of communities we want to build and the type of country we want Australia to be.

We are very clearly setting out in this budget that we want Australia to be a country, and the communities that I represent to be communities, where people have a fair go and where that aspiration and ability to get ahead is there for everyone. Contrast that with those opposite, with the Liberal-National-possibly One Nation opposition—still fixated on higher power prices through an obsession with dirty, expensive coal, determined to drag Australia back to the fights of the past not to invest in the future and the opportunities that come with it but to play out culture wars they import from elsewhere, and hope that that'll reverse their electoral fortunes.

These appropriation bills say that our government wants an Australia where hard work is rewarded, where Medicare remains universal, where young people can aspire to own a home and where more Australians can get ahead. The Albanese Labor government is getting on with the job of building Australia's future.

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to the government's budget papers and the appropriation bills for 2026-27. The budget contains measures that respond to some immediate pressures, but it fails the bigger test on a number of fronts—and I want to deal with some of those tonight.

Firstly, Australia is not investing seriously in protecting households, communities and the economy from climate risks that are already arriving. The government has rightly spoken about resilience in relation to fuel security, supply chains and global volatility, but the same urgency is completely missing when it comes to climate resilience—the floods, the fires, the storms, the coastal erosion and the heatwaves that are already driving up household costs, insurance premiums and disaster recovery bills. The government was all but silent on that on budget night.

Earlier this year I wrote to the Treasurer, urging the government to put climate adaptation and resilience at the centre of national economic management because resilience needs to be done in advance. You don't just do it at the last minute, because sustainable economic management and community safety can't be achieved while we continue to spend far more cleaning up after disasters than preventing damage in the first place. The economics on this are clear. Over the last three federal budgets, the Commonwealth has allocated about $2.5 billion to climate adaptation, resilience and disaster preparedness, while natural disaster relief is expected to cost around $9.86 billion over the same period—significantly more, nearly five times more, on recovery than prevention.

I've called for Australia to scale up investment in climate risk reduction and adaptation to at least a quarter of a per cent of GDP, which would make it commensurate to the actual cost that occurs to the economy. It's a modest benchmark compared to the scale of the risk, and it would provide a clear, stable and accountable floor for national resilience investment. The government should not treat adaptation as a discretionary grant program. It should be treated as core national infrastructure, core national security and core cost-of-living policy.

The government conducted the first National Climate Risk Assessment, and the outcomes were dire; the findings were incredibly serious. Yet there was no response in the budget that was commensurate to the seriousness of those risks. In fact, there was so little allocated to adaptation and resilience. We have to be really clear that climate resilience is not separate from the cost of living. It is now one of the front lines, in fact, of the cost-of-living crisis. When homes flood, when bushfire risk rises, when coastal storms damage infrastructure and when insurance premiums rise, mortgages become harder to maintain, councils face higher costs and taxpayers are left footing the bill, and still there is no proper acknowledgement from the government in respect of this.

In Warringah, climate risk is not theoretical. Our community is coastal, urban, bushland adjacent and highly exposed to the natural hazards that are becoming far more frequent and more severe. Northern Beaches Council has identified the long-term climate risks facing our region, including sea-level rise and more frequent extreme weather events: bushfires, coastal floods, storms, floods and droughts. Council has also recognised that roads, stormwater systems, seawalls and buildings need to be able to withstand the impacts of the next 50 to 100 years, not just the conditions of the past. Yet local government is not being equipped to deal with those costs. The northern beaches has already experienced the real-life effects of bushfires, storms and flooding, with impacts on property, clean-up costs, repair bills, insurance costs and community wellbeing. We see it on our beaches too. Coastal erosion is already a live risk for communities across the northern beaches, with several beaches classified by the NSW government as coastal erosion hotspots. These risks are not abstract modelling exercises. They're planning, infrastructure, insurance and household budget issues.

For so many people, they work their entire life to invest in their home, and then they're unable to insure that home against the highly likely risk of disaster—and the government know this. Their own risk assessment shows that risks are escalating, compounding and cascading when it comes to people's homes, and so many are unable to insure their home. There is a complete vacuum from others in this place in even acknowledging those risks or having a plan for Australians. I've heard directly from a constituent whose insurance premiums have jumped sharply and from residents in flood affected pockets of Warringah who have been priced out of cover or denied cover altogether. This is the future we risk normalising if we don't invest in resilience: more households exposed, more businesses disrupted, more public infrastructure damaged and more Australians left wondering whether they can afford to insure the homes they've worked their whole lives to buy and support.

Warringah is not asking for special treatment. So many other communities are concerned about this, and it shouldn't be up to the communities and local people to have to deal with this alone. The government must step up to that resilience piece. We have to find ways to ensure that insurance is affordable and available for the vast majority of our communities and that there is support underpinning it. We need to make sure we can fix damaged infrastructure, and emergency appeals are there, but we have to build in that resilience.

Australia's first National Climate Risk Assessment confirms what communities are already living through: more frequent and severe floods, fires and cyclones; greater exposure to sea-level rise; higher costs; reduced productivity; and worsening inequality. Insurance is one of the clearest price signals of this risk. APRA found that, between 2010 and 2025, Australian home insurance premiums rose at an average rate of 7.2 per cent while wages grew by only 3.1 per cent. APRA also found that more frequent and severe weather events are driving premium increases as insurers reprice risk. If people cannot afford to insure their home, then they are exposed to a financial risk. If lenders become concerned about underinsurance, then mortgage risk rises. If businesses cannot afford cover, their investment is delayed. If councils can't afford to protect local infrastructure, then roads, stormwater facilities, beaches, parks and community facilities deteriorate.

Yet the Commonwealth's main resilience financing vehicle, the Disaster Ready Fund, remains far too small for the scale of the task. The government describes the fund as its flagship disaster resilience initiative, but it provides up to $1 billion over five years, which is $200 million a year. Let's just stop for a moment and think about that perspective. It's nowhere near enough. The budget itself confirms $200 million under round 3 of the Disaster Ready Fund while the risk facing communities continues to escalate. Frankly, it's backwards to spend billions after disasters, but only a fraction of that amount preventing that damage and helping communities build their resilience beforehand. Every household understands that basic principle.

The other big message that came out of the budget papers and these appropriation bills is the question of intergenerational fairness. The test of tax reform should also be in that respect. For too long we have known that the housing crisis has been worsening. Australia's housing tax settings have rewarded those who already own assets, while younger Australians are left trying to save a deposit in a market where prices have run far ahead of wages. When property investors are outbidding young first homebuyers, it is not a level playing field. I support the principles of winding back tax settings in relation to investment properties. The current tax settings that have encouraged investment into existing housing rather than new supply. Negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts have too often operated together to make established property a tax preferred investment vehicle rather than a place to live.

But good reform has to be well designed. I think there is a social licence around these changes when it comes to property investment, but the government has not made the case, and there certainly is no social licence and there is no clear productivity argument around applying the capital gains tax changes across business investment shares, employees equity startups, venture capital and small business succession. That's why I've written to the Treasurer again seeking the modelling and the rationale for the 30 per cent minimum tax rate around capital gains, seeking the evidence for these. What is the evidence to underpin extending the changes from property investment to that much broader application?

The strong feeling and the strong feedback is that people are incredibly blindsided. The government simply does not have a mandate to extend those changes beyond investment property. And, in fact, the strong concern is that it will weaken productivity and investment. Intergenerational equity is not achieved if we make housing fairer for young Australians but make it harder for them to build businesses, invest in innovation, access employee equity or grow any kind of buffer or nest egg outside of property. The objects should be clear: reduce the tax advantages that have encouraged passive speculation in existing housing while protecting the investment pathways that support entrepreneurship, that support productivity, that support clean energy, small business growth and long-term economic resilience. The Treasurer should release the modelling so parliament can assess genuinely whether these reforms are finding the right balance because overwhelmingly the feedback from the community, from that very generation that the government is claiming to be there to support, is strongly against it. They feel absolutely blindsided by these actions from the government.

I can only convey the stories that were put to me. Young professionals are working really hard. They've got good incomes, but, between high rents or high mortgage rates, they have barely anything left over every month. They are just going pay cheque to pay cheque. What little they are able to save or put aside, they are putting into start-ups, into shares or into ETFs in the hope of building a little bit of a buffer for their economic circumstances. Let's be really clear. These are not high wealth, high net worth—this is not a question of earning an income from investments instead of an income from working and being taxed on that wage. They are already paying tax through their wages. They are simply trying to save and create a buffer, and now the government's proposal is to come and yet again tear down that aspiration. I would urge the government to separate out their approach when it comes to property investment compared to innovation and productivity when it comes to small business, start-ups and, in particular, shares. This budget also really failed and left many people behind. The government talks a lot about not leaving anyone behind, but, in a cost-of-living crisis, there was nothing in this budget for the most vulnerable in our communities. At a time when rent, food, transport and energy costs remain high, the government has not delivered the serious increase to JobSeeker that community organisations, economists and its own advisory bodies have repeatedly called for. Organisations like ACOSS have warned that JobSeeker remains just $409 per week, around 42 per cent of the minimum wage, and says the payment must be lifted beyond this pitiful level.

It's not just a welfare issue. It's a dignity issue, a poverty issue and a participation issue because the level is so low people can't even get back into the workforce. It is simply unsustainable. ACOSS and UNSW research found that less than a quarter of people surveyed said they could live on JobSeeker. The government's own economic inclusion advisory committee has again recommended lifting JobSeeker, youth allowance and related working-age payments as a first priority. Yet there was nothing in this budget for all those people. ACOSS has also pointed out that the budget settings effectively freeze JobSeeker, in real terms, over the forward estimates, with no one-off increase and no change to indexation. That is not adequate cost-of-living relief. It means asking people with the least to absorb the most pressure.

Finally, in relation to the budget's investment in child support reform, this is welcome. It's long overdue, and something I've been advocating for for many years. The government has committed $182.6 million over four years, with $19.6 million ongoing, to make the child support scheme safer and more effective by addressing weaponisation, financial abuse and noncompliance. In the scourge of domestic violence, it is quite shocking that we still essentially have institutionalised facilitation of financial control. The child support system does not work because, too often, mothers are left with a child support debt from their ex-partners, and then the Commonwealth seeks to recover a debt against them from the family support payment.

The government knows this is a problem; it's recognised that women make up the majority of recipient parents and that the system has too often been used by perpetrators of family and domestic violence to continue control after separation. Parents should not be forced back into conflict, into unsafe contact or repeated administrative battles with an abusive former partner. The government must progress to a child support guarantee, and, when a parent fails to pay, children don't go without. When there is a family support debt owed to the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth should recoup it against the parent with a child support liability. Stop chasing women for those payments because all it does is give them credit rating issues, mean they cannot get into housing and mean they bear the brunt of it. There are many simple things that still need to be done in relation to this budget.

Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This suite of appropriation bills shows that the Albanese Labor government is prepared to make the decisions that count. It's an ambitious budget because it needs to be; the times demand it. The global context in which we find ourselves demands it. The bottom line of this budget is about providing financial relief for all Australians while undertaking the necessary reforms to create a more resilient economy for our future. It is about ensuring that Australians keep more of what they earn, and it is about ensuring that health access and affordability are a right, not a privilege. It's about ensuring that all Australians, younger and older, no matter their background, are able to get ahead and stake their share in the Australian dream.

It is now harder for younger Australians, because they find themselves in a historically unprecedented housing situation, to achieve the traditional milestones that Australia has prided itself on being part of being an Australian—owning a home, raising a family and saving for a more secure future. Our aged care system, on its current trajectory, will be unable to keep up with the rate of growth in population of older Australians, because they are one of the fastest growing populations. Younger Australians deserve access to secure housing and the opportunities to build their future—our future, Australia's future—and older Australians deserve the secure retirement and services that they have worked for.

The Albanese Labor government's vision is simple. It is one in which all Australians are able to contribute fully to our national economic life and reap the benefits of doing so. It's a vision in which no Australian is left behind, whereas what we've seen from those opposite can hardly be considered serious at all. They presented not an alternative financial proposition. It's been an unabashed demonstration of dog whistling.

The Albanese Labor government have proven time and again that we are the only serious and capable economic managers. We are the government of lower taxes and sound economic management. We are the government that delivered the first budget surplus in nearly two decades and then backed it up with a second. But the Albanese Labor government is also prepared to be upfront about our fiscal position in relation to global uncertainties. The economic repercussions of the conflict in the Middle East have been felt not only in Australia but in countries across the globe. Those repercussions have dragged on far longer than what we initially expected. Like other countries, we are confronted daily with the challenge of fuel security due to the unpredictability of the situation in the Strait of Hormuz. This budget seeks to shore up our future fuel security to prepare us for unexpected global energy shocks and disruptions, which are, more often than not, out of our hands. To this end, we have committed to purchasing more fuel and more fertiliser and to growing our national reserves of jet fuel and diesel to 50 days. We will make gas companies reserve 20 per cent of their exports for domestic use, because it simply defies moral logic that Australians should be left in the lurch when it comes to the natural resources that we own.

At the moment the Middle East conflict erupted, the Albanese Labor government acted to relieve pressure at the pump for everyday Australians. The Prime Minister, Foreign minister and others negotiated with our South-East Asian neighbours to ensure that we had security of fuel supply. We halved the fuel excise, reduced the heavy vehicle road user charge to zero and empowered our consumer regulator to be able to impose larger financial penalties on petrol companies that take advantage of the conflict and of their customers and artificially inflate their prices, because everyday Australians should not have to pay prohibitive sums in order to drive to work.

Yes, it's an ambitious budget, and, yes, we are making the hard decisions now in order that future generations won't have to. With $63.8 billion in savings, this budget constitutes the largest savings package ever. What this means is that debt will be lower and our budget position will be stronger year on year in the medium term because it is a deliberate principle of this budget that we save so that we can pass on the benefits in tax cuts to everyday Australians. This budget will see Australians receive more tax cuts from 1 July this year, in addition to the previous three rounds of legislated tax cuts, to help relieve cost-of-living pressures. This includes a $250 tax offset and a $1,000 instant tax deduction for working Australians. The $250 tax offset will benefit 13.3 million workers, including 880,000 in my home state of South Australia, while the $1,000 instant write-off will benefit 6.2 million workers, including 450,000 in South Australia.

We will also ease cost-of-living pressures by making access to health care easier and more affordable. The government has in this budget committed $1.8 billion over five years to our urgent care clinics, making them a permanent part of Medicare. With 135 urgent care clinics across Australia and more being built, this will mean that four in five Australians will live within a 20-minute drive of one. In South Australia alone, urgent care clinics have delivered over 172,000 bulk-billed visits since the network's inception in 2023. In the Marion Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, in my electorate of Boothby, there have been nearly 31,000 visits since November 2023, when it opened. The proliferation of urgent care clinics will mean reduced wait times for patients seeking urgent care, while also taking pressure off our emergency departments and services.

The budget also commits an extra $25 billion in addition to the $220 billion already invested in our public hospitals over the next five years. In South Australia, we expect to receive $2.7 billion in hospital funding in the next financial year and $3.3 billion by financial year 2029-30. And Australians have already saved more than $2.3 billion with cheaper PBS medicines, with a maximum price of $25 per script or $7.70 for pensioners and concession cardholders. In Boothby, that's over three million cheaper scripts, and across South Australia that's over 31 million.

We're investing in more bulk-billing GPs, with now almost 3,800 fully bulk-billing practices right across Australia, and a projected nine out of 10 GP visits will be bulk-billed by 2030. The reality is that Australia is experiencing a rapidly growing older population. We have more retirees and comparatively fewer working-age taxpayers. Our demographics are changing, so our service offerings need to change as well. We know that the demand for aged-care services, in-home and residential, is growing and will continue to grow. A new aged-care home needs to be built every three days for the next 20 years in order to be able to provide the services our cohort of older Australians will need. Currently, we're not meeting that demand, and the entire system risks collapsing under its own weight.

Older Australians will benefit from the Albanese Labor government's commitment to expanding and improving the aged-care system. This will mean more aged-care beds, more packages and better care. It will mean 5,000 more beds year on year. It will mean being able to build and maintain quality residential accommodation. It will mean a Support at Home program that is fairer and more affordable, with faster and improved assessments and shorter wait times. It will mean free personal-care services—like showering assistance, dressing and continence support—alongside free clinical care. It will mean an expansion of the end-of-life pathway to provide dignified care for older Australians in their final months. And it will mean 20 additional Specialist Dementia Care Program units and an expansion of the Hospital to Aged Care Dementia Support Program, which will provide crucial transitional support for older Australians going from hospital to residential aged care.

We have also made, unsurprisingly, housing a crucial plank of this budget. Homeownership is a key part of the Australian dream, but for the past four decades this country has not built enough houses to keep up with demand. The tax settings that benefited investors over owner-occupiers drove housing prices up and up. In 1990, an average Australian home cost approximately 2.6 to four times the average wage. Now it's anywhere between 10 to 16 times the average wage and utterly unaffordable. No wonder we hear from first home buyers and young people that they don't think they will ever own their own home. That isn't good enough. So, in addition to all we have done in housing in the past four years, we're doing more.

The government has announced in this budget a $2 billion investment in the enabling infrastructure that will unlock much needed housing development. The Local Infrastructure Fund will assist local and state governments and utility companies in closing that last mile that has often posed a barrier to housing completion. It will mean that practical work can begin right away on water, roads and utilities, which will enable an additional 65,000 new homes to be built over the next 10 years. In South Australia, local and state governments and utility providers will be eligible for more than $130 million in funding. We've already helped 250,000 first home buyers get into housing through the government's five per cent deposit scheme, but we recognise that they continue to be inherently disadvantaged by a tax system that works against them.

First home buyers, owner-occupiers, have been outcompeted in property purchases by investors who are subsidised by the taxpayer. The investor can pay more for a property, knowing that any loss they will make will be compensated by the taxpayer. That's not fair, and that's why we're making the tax system fairer by removing negative gearing on established builds and changing the way capital gains are taxed. Because Australians that want to buy their own homes should not be put in a position where they will be outcompeted by an investor who is able to exploit tax advantages. What this means is that, for new investments, negative gearing can only be applied to new builds, and capital gains will be adjusted for inflation before being taxed at a minimum rate of 30 per cent.

These reforms will mean that more Australians can get into homeownership and younger Australians can get into the housing market, and any new negative gearing investments will go to building new homes, which will increase the housing stock. The result will be a boost in housing supply by another 30,000 homes over the next decade, and we will see 75,000 more homeowners being supported into the market. The reforms are about levelling the playing field and giving every Australian the opportunity to get their foot in the door of owning a home—a fair go for all Australians.

This budget is perhaps one of the more important budgets in recent times, because we find ourselves at a juncture, at a crossroads. While the opposition continue to distract themselves with their search for political identity, culture wars and negativity, we are acutely conscious of the fact that we must act now on these critical issues, or it will be too late: we will let the housing crisis run away from us, which will mean that young Australians will certainly never be able to afford to buy their own home; we will let the cost of living run away from us, which will mean reduced standards of living and poorer health outcomes; we'll let the aged-care crisis run away from us, which will mean older Australians will no longer be able to receive the quality care that they need and deserve; or we'll let the global fuel crisis run away, which will have severe impacts on our national productivity. But we're not here for that; we are here to do the right thing.

This is a responsible budget, a reforming budget, a budget designed to promote economic resilience. It's a budget for all Australians, young and old, no matter your background. And it's a budget that recognises the urgency of the moment, a moment that the Albanese Labor government is determined to meet. I commend these bills to the House.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027, the budget that was handed down recently. Budgets are important documents not just for the figures that a lot of people talk about—'We're funding this. We're paying for that. We're cutting this.' It really does set out some pointers and directions of where a government's true motivations lie, where their true philosophies lie and where they want to take the country.

In the history of political thought in recent times, there have been a lot of experiments around the world as to how to manage a society, how to manage an economy. There are those who argue that we should have a bigger government with more spending, more people employed by the government. The logical extension of this, of course, is socialism then leading to communism, where the government is all controlling and government spending is everything in the economy. On the other side of political philosophy, there is capitalism and the free market, where you sort of just let it rip.

Now, those philosophies at the pure ends of the scale are, of course, unworkable and unacceptable. I think the examples of eastern Europe in the 1970s and 1980s show what the ultimate impact of big government is. And the example in the United States—though it's a great country with great innovation—shows what a free market that goes too far without a safety net can be. So we need to decide, in Australia, where we are going to settle in these ideas of how big the government should be and what kind of a society we should be. What do we take from socialism, what do we take from capitalism, and how do we set the place up to be really vibrant and dynamic?

The history of Australia in recent times is really interesting. You had a Whitlam government that was quite a left-wing government and wanted a lot of government control in everything; a Fraser government that rejected those ideas but didn't make the reforms that it should have made; and a Hawke-Keating government that perhaps rejected the old Labor ideology—which has come back, by the way—of big government and tried to open Australia's economy up to something better, to the dynamism and the influence that a really strong and competitive global private enterprise can have. Hawke and Keating understood that, and they understood that was the way to get Australia going. Here we have a budget that is taking us in a very different direction from Hawke and Keating, expanding the size of government, making sure more people are involved in the government and employed by the government and really making it difficult for private enterprise to get ahead.

This budget contains some very significant changes to treatment in relation to the capital gains tax and negative gearing in particular. There are also some changes to trusts. But, in relation to CGT and negative gearing, these are big changes. I won't deny that. When big changes normally are proposed by a government, the courageous and decent thing to do is to seek a mandate by taking those changes to an election, as John Howard did in 1998 and Bill Shorten, to his great credit, did with similar changes to these at the 2019 election. Shorten lost the 2019 election, but he had the decency and the courage to take those changes to an election. This government did not do that. Changes are important, but so is how you make the changes and how you try and bring the Australian people along with you. If you really believe that you can sell these changes and that they're a good thing for Australians, don't sneak them in in the middle of a term. Take something this big to an election, and let's have a debate about it. That did not happen.

In relation to the changes themselves—firstly, capital gains tax changes have gone over like a lead balloon because, even though this government's trying to stamp it out, there is still a spirit of entrepreneurialism in this country. It's incredibly well exhibited in my electorate of Nicholls, where people have turned up from all parts of the world, often with nothing, and have used the natural resources there. In our case, it's irrigation water, but there are also the fine soils, the ability to grow fruit, the ability to process that fruit, the dairy industry and all of the ancillary businesses that strike up. When someone has a successful industry, all these private enterprise businesses strike up to service it. The change to the capital gains tax is the government saying, 'If you take a risk and if you're successful, we are going to tax you more as a result of being successful.'

There are a couple of problems with that. Firstly, it cruels aspiration. People might not be as willing to take a risk. But worse is this: do you know what the people who have a great idea and the inclination to take a risk with that great idea and set up a business are going to do? They're going to go to another country. We've already got the New Zealand finance minister saying, 'Hey, Aussie entrepreneurs, come over here.' That's not a good thing for a neighbouring country to be saying after a budget. It's basically saying, 'Your government is going to tax you for your success and your risk and we are not, because we want your ideas, we want your creativity and we want your appetite for entrepreneurialism.'

The changes to negative gearing are intended to make it easier for young people to get into the housing market, and I think that's an intent that we all share. That intent is best served by making sure that we improve the supply of houses. That will solve that problem more than anything else. I agree with the measures in this budget to provide $2 billion for enabling infrastructure for new housing developments. Our policy is to provide $5 billion and have a proportion of it in regional Australia. But I do support that part of the budget. I think it could be more, and we would do more, but I support that.

Go out and actually talk to housing developers, builders and the people who go in there. Once a council zones a paddock, takes it away from being agricultural or industrial and says, 'We're zoning it residential,' look at the time and money that it takes to get to the point where someone can actually pour a slab and build a house. It is too long, too hard and too expensive. We need to try and free that up a bit, make it quicker and make it more possible to get more blocks and more houses out there.

Many of those opposite and a lot of the ministers are having trouble explaining how the treatment of trusts works. I too am having trouble explaining to some of my constituents how the treatment of testamentary discretionary trusts works and whether or not they will be taxed. I think the government needs to go back to the drawing board and have a look at that. There's a lot of talk in the wash-up of this budget about intergenerational equality. What sort of Australia, what sort of a budget bottom line and what sort of tax system we leave to our future Australians is the real test of intergenerational equality. I worry about the Australia that we're leaving them.

We are leaving them with a tax system that doesn't reward them in the way that it should. The government's very fond of saying they're going to give working Australians some sort of tax back, which is not much money in the scheme of things. That tax that they get back, that money that they get back, is going to be eaten up in this insidious problem that we have had in the Australian tax system for years called bracket creep. As inflation rises, you go to your employer—or hopefully your employer comes to you and says, 'As CPI is rising, your wages need to rise to deal with the cost of living.' That wage increase pushes you into a higher tax bracket, and the government, while saying, 'We're giving you a tax cut,' grabs it back with the other hand.

This has been a problem with the Australian taxation system for a long time. It has meant that, as people become more senior and they try to work a bit harder and earn more money, the money just gets grabbed back by the government. I hadn't seen anyone with the courage to seriously do something about it until the Leader of the Opposition got up and announced what the changes around indexing tax brackets to inflation will be. It's courageous. It's bold, and I think, once we get out there and explain to the Australian people that it's their money—and you don't want the government grabbing it back because you had the temerity to become more senior, work harder and get a higher wage—they'll respond very positively towards that.

There are some regional impacts to this budget too that make a big difference to what the productivity of Australia will be. The cuts to the Inland Rail project are incredibly regrettable. That is a nation-building project—it should be a nation-building project—that has a great environmental benefit and a great productivity benefit. It was going to spring businesses up all across the extent of it. To end it at Parkes and not take it through to Queensland is very disappointing. There are significant cuts to infrastructure spending and the National Water Grid—even smaller things like the $191 million cut from pests and diseases and regional trade and drought funding and the $21.4 million cut from regional communications funding. This is all very regrettable.

I do give credit where it's due. After more than a year of us trying to highlight the lack of funding in key regional grant programs, the new rounds of the Growing Regions Program and the Stronger Communities Program have been funded. I support the government in that. For too long, councils and community organisations have been starved of any opportunity to even apply for funding, so I welcome that.

There has never been a clearer outline of competing visions for Australia's future. On one hand, you've got a bigger government where more people are employed by the public service, where more people are reliant on the government for their funding and where the government is in people's lives more than it has ever been with all of the cruelling of economic opportunity and private enterprise that that causes. Or you've got a different vision—the one of the pioneers who got off boats at the Port of Melbourne in the late 1940s and said: 'Where do I want to go? I want to go to Shepparton, in the Nicholls electorate, because that's where opportunity exists. You can go up there and, if you work hard, you can get ahead. You can make something because it's private enterprise. There are no government jobs up there, but if you get out and work hard on a farm, in five years you'll own your own farm.' We've seen waves of people come and do that, and it's been inspiring to see.

We want to be the sort of government that encourages that entrepreneurism; doesn't punish people for their aspirations about wanting to get ahead; makes sure we increase housing supply, which will be the thing that gets more young people into housing; and builds an Australia that is not veering towards socialism, which is something that we have seen not work in lifting people's ideas. I'll give you an example. I'll give you a quote from former senator Mathias Cormann. The reason he became a Liberal and on that side of politics is because of what he saw in East Germany versus West Germany. When you see the capitalism and the business and all the development and how that lifts people, he was inspired, and that's why he wanted to be on the side of aspiration, of free trade, of free enterprise, but with that crucial safety net to make sure everyone's dignity is supported.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This budget is about relief, recovery and resilience, and I'm proud to speak on the appropriation bills associated with it. It delivers more tax cuts and a fair go at buying your own home, and it strengthens Medicare for all. It's about getting workers, families and businesses in my community through the current global fuel crisis while building a stronger economy that works for more people. At the outset, I want to say that the budget is a budget dedicated to tax relief for 13.3 million Australian workers, helping more people realise the great Australian dream of homeownership and creating a fairer and more sustainable tax system for all Australians.

I listened to the previous speaker—who, by the way, should be changing his party room, the National Party, the great agrarian socialists of Australian politics, into the Liberal Party. I look forward to the membership of the HR Nicholls Society as well. I grew up under the Bjelke-Petersen regime, and I can recognise someone that doesn't actually adhere to National Party values.

The highest taxing government in the history of the Commonwealth of Australia, by the way, was the Howard government. The highest spending government in the history of the Commonwealth of Australia was the Morrison government. That's a fact—not a belief, a fact. Those opposite think that, when we make some modest, reasonable and just changes to the tax system, somehow we're creating a sort of a Berlin Wall. It's quite an astonishing claim from those opposite in relation to the reality of what we're doing here.

It'd be even more sensible if they had voted at any stage for the income tax cuts that we took to the last election. Don't forget that at the last federal election, this mob, the Liberal and National parties, were going to increase people's taxes—that's what their platform was—and create a greater debt and deficit for the public. So they weren't exactly a prudent, pragmatic, sensible, economically responsible opposition when it came to the last budget, and the people marked them down accordingly. That's quite clear.

Eighty thousand taxpayers in my electorate of Blair will benefit from this cost-of-living relief, with the second of the three tax cuts to come into effect this year. From 1 July 2027, every working Australian taxpayer will receive the $250 working Australians tax offset, a permanent annual tax offset of up to $250 for income earned, increasing the effective tax-free threshold for workers by nearly $1,800 to $19,985, or $24,985 for workers eligible for the low-income tax offset. This is the largest permanent increase in the effective tax-free threshold since 2012-13 under the Gillard Labor government, and it's a big win for workers in my electorate. I'm going to be very interested in how the Liberal and National people opposite vote in relation to that particular bill when it comes into the chamber, having opposed income tax in the last parliament and having gone to an election opposing income tax cuts as well.

We've also introduced a $1,000 instant tax deduction for work related expenses, to offset employment income. This automatic deduction will make tax time simpler and deliver more cost-of-living relief from 2026-27. This will benefit 6.2 million workers, with an average tax saving of $205. We've already cut income taxes five times since coming to government, a record that those opposite cannot claim, despite having served nearly 10 years on the Treasury benches. The combined effect of all of this, on top of the government's existing tax cuts and instant deduction, is that the average worker in Blair could benefit by almost $3,000 by 2028, and they would not experience that if the coalition had won the last election.

The 2026 budget also includes important tax relief for small businesses, the backbone of my community across Ipswich, the Somerset region and the Karana Downs area. The government will make the per asset $20,000 instant asset write-off for small businesses permanent to support greater business investment and productivity.

The budget is focused on helping households, businesses and farmers in Blair get through the disruption caused by the conflict in the Middle East. We've already slashed the fuel excise, which is flowing through to local motorists at the bowser, saving them money when they fill up. That has been reported to me, and I discussed it with people at the Willowbank area group just last Monday night. We're investing to buy more fuel and fertiliser and keep more here, with a $10 billion Australian fuel security and resilience package, which will help Ipswich and the Somerset region keep moving. Again, I received positive feedback about that at the Ipswich Show last Saturday, and I was there for three days.

With an interest in electric vehicles up in Blair as a result of the global fuel crisis, we want to encourage the take-up of EVs. We've introduced some pretty sensible changes, I think, to the fringe benefit tax exemption for EVs to deliver fairer and more financially sustainable tax incentives.

On top of this, there's a 20 per cent domestic gas reservation scheme, which will secure more gas supply and put downward pressure on gas prices for local residents and businesses. When we talk about energy costs, who can ever forget those opposite voting against energy bill relief?

I want to commend Stacey Schinnerl and the Australian Workers' Union, particularly the Queensland branch but across the country, for their strong advocacy in relation to that gas reservation scheme. They took it to regional conferences, state conferences and national conferences of the Labor Party and pushed and pushed this, and I want to commend them for the work they've done in relation to this. This is a good outcome, I say, for people in my electorate. We've seen reforms to the petroleum resource rent tax, which, for the budget, will see and has seen an uptick in tax revenue from offshore gas projects. It's a pretty uncertain world, but we're preparing for future energy stocks.

In particular, we're focusing on helping people get an opportunity to get ahead. We want to make sure there's a level playing field for young people and first home buyers, with a fairer tax system. We're reforming how capital gains tax and negative gearing work, to help 75,000 extra homeowners into the market for the very first time. This is about putting householders first and helping more people in Blair buy their home, whether they live in Ripley Valley; South Ripley, where I was last week; Springfield; or Spring Mountain. Right now, first home buyers are being priced out of the market by property investors—I've received story after story in relation to that issue—backed by tax breaks like negative gearing. We want to level the playing field. From 1 July 2027, we'll limit negative gearing for residential property investments to new builds to ensure investors contribute to housing supply and give first home owners a fair go. We're replacing the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount for individuals, trusts and partnerships with cost base indexation and a 30 per cent minimum tax rate on capital gains.

As former prime minister Paul Keating—and I heard the previous speaker laud him—pointed out recently while backing in these changes, the simple fact is that, in our current system, income is taxed too heavily while capital is taxed too lightly. That was a point Paul Keating made very clearly. These changes will rebalance our tax system, make it fairer and allow government to take pressure off wage earners and first home buyers.

This will be warmly received in my electorate. We've got a younger population that even Brisbane does; our average age is 33, and, in suburbs I've referred to in this speech, it's even younger—below 20. Brisbane has an average age of about 36, which is still below the national average. We've got young people moving into the corridors in places like Ripley. I was there last week, at the Stockland Providence shopping centre's opening. This is really important in terms of housing affordability. There are houses going up everywhere in that area. It's people like these who we want to help get into the market. This budget is about helping these workers and first home buyers, as well as businesses, so that more people can earn more, keep more of what they earn and get ahead. That's aspiration—to get ahead.

When the Howard government introduced the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount in 1999, they saw too much—and we've seen too much—investment going into the property market, as opposed to more productive parts of the economy. Shareholdings actually reduced; house prices skyrocketed. That distortion made housing unaffordable for a whole generation. What we need to do is address this issue, and that's what this budget is about. We're fixing the tax treatment of capital gains to remove these distortions and help to ensure investment flows to where it's most productive. And, can I just say, that is good for the economy, that is good for private enterprise and that's good for aspiration.

I heard those opposite say on numerous occasions, 'It's socialism, leading to communism.' That's what they say. Realistically, that's just nonsense. It's about getting people to own private property, which is the heart of capitalism and the free enterprise system. People who own private property contribute to the economy. They look for jobs, they engage in jobs and they contribute to their local communities even more. They feel a sense of ownership. That's not about communism; that's about capitalism. That's about free enterprise. The party of Menzies and the party of 'Black Jack' McEwen opposite—honestly, where have the Liberal and National parties gone in relation to this issue?

It's early days, but, in recent days, we've seen some reports of the housing market moderating and normalising after the post-COVID highs, including in Brisbane and Ipswich, in anticipation of these tax changes. There are a range of factors at play, but I think these reforms will have a significant impact on housing affordability. When it comes to housing, I can tell you there are more than 5,100 people in my local community, first home buyers, who got their first home as a result of Labor's five per cent deposit scheme.

I hear those opposite make speeches about wanting to get more homes. It's a pity they voted against every housing bill in the last parliament, and I anticipate they're likely to vote against housing bills in this parliament. The Homes for Australia Plan is a commitment of 1.2 million households—more homes for Australia. Those opposite, who couldn't even find a housing minister for most of their term, are voting against that sort of legislation and then applauding, for example, in my home state of Queensland, when we do a deal with the Crisafulli government for 51,000 more homes across fast-growing areas like Yarrabilba and other places in South-East Queensland—and 20,000 being geared for first home buyers. Those opposite, the Liberal and National parties, who think this is a good idea—even the Crisafulli LNP government think it's a good idea—voted against the funding. These people in this chamber voted against it. So, when they lament, when they claim they've got some real concerns about housing and when they want to link migration to housing, look at how they vote. They vote against housing for young people and for other people every single time.

They talk about their $5 billion plan for local infrastructure. I want to tell the member for Nicholls, who spoke here in this chamber, that our $2 billion extra in the local infrastructure fund adds on and accumulates to $6.3 billion to get up to 65,000 new homes. They claim that's a good idea. It's a pity they didn't vote for our housing bills in the last parliament. Now, in opposition for a second time, they've had a sort of road-to-Damascus conversion and, somehow, think this is good.

I want to tell you we've doubled the Roads to Recovery funding from $500 million to a billion dollars. We've increased by 40 per cent the black spot funding. They claim we don't do it. These are the people that paused funding to local councils when they were last in government. They paused the funding; we doubled the funding, in terms of Roads to Recovery. We've increased black spot funding by 40 per cent and provided extra funding under financial assistance grants. The coalition, in government, paused it and didn't do anything about it, much to the chagrin of local government associations around the country.

We're doing things like building 24 social homes with the $14.2 million North Ipswich social housing project in conjunction with the state government. This is funding that we delivered but that the coalition opposed. They think it's a good idea to go to these projects and think it's a good idea for housing per se, but, when push comes to shove, they won't vote for it. They won't. They just will not vote for it. Despite what they say in this place, they're all bolshie. It's a good word, bolshie, because that's a word they really don't like. They're really bolshie about that. When they go back to their electorates, they think, 'Oh, this is a good idea. It's very, very nice to see this happening in my electorate.' But when they come here, they vote against it again and again.

For example, they don't think the $1 billion we put aside for the Building Early Education Fund is a good thing. We've worked with the Crisafulli government for five sites in Queensland. We've done that, including in my electorate of Blair, where the Rosewood State School will get funding to improve access for early childhood education, helping children transition to primary school. They think that's a waste of money. I can tell you that John-Paul Langbroek, the minister for education in Queensland, doesn't think it's a waste of money. He stood up and did a press conference with us, thinking it's a good idea. Here, of course, the Liberal and National parties think that sort of funding is a waste of time, but when they go back to Queensland they say something very, very different. And the Crisafulli government says something very, very different, I can assure you.

My electorate is one of the fastest growing in the country. In fact, I've got more electors in my electorate than has any federal seat in the country. One of the big things we've got in my electorate, which I'm so pleased to see, is the nearly 37,000 visits to the Ipswich Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, which those opposite would have closed down if they'd won the last election. In a huge investment, we've now got 30 bulk-billing medical practices in Ipswich and Somerset in my electorate and, of course, in the Karana Downs region. This is a massive increase. Those opposite thought that was a waste of time. They claim they don't believe in socialism or anything like that. Perhaps they should tear up those green cards they hold in their wallets. Medicare has made a huge difference. This bill—and this budget—provides a massive investment in health care, PBS and pharmaceuticals, and those opposite haven't supported it one little bit.

Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know that on budget night the Labor members were patting each other on the back for a fantastic budget and doing such a great job, and I can kind of understand what the thinking was—that if you remove the negative gearing on existing properties, that's going to do something amazing. We'll have all these people go and invest in new land and build a house and negative gear that and get the capital gains tax. There is one thing the Labor members haven't thought of. In suburbs such as Gembrook, Cockatoo and Emerald in my electorate of La Trobe, there's only a five per cent rental market. Are the people who are holding onto those properties likely to sell those properties and try to reinvest down in, say, Clyde North or the new growth corridors in Pakenham? The simple answer is no. Either they're going to hold onto those properties or, if they do sell, obviously an investor is not going to be come in and assist the rental market up there. In those little areas that I mentioned, there are going to be a lot fewer rentals.

Then we can go down to the south of the electorate. People talk about property developers. We're talking about hundreds of acres of land—or it could be 30 acres of land. That's not mums and dads and first homebuyers getting in there; that's property investors and developers going in there. So you're going to have a property investor going up against new homeowner. I just can't see that what Labor is proposing is actually going to work.

The budget was just a budget of broken promises, higher taxes, more debt, lower living standards and fewer homes for Australians. There is a projected decade of deficits worth about $150 billion, with gross debt of around $1.25 trillion, annual interest costs of over $42 billion per year—that's roughly $80,000 per minute. Higher taxes of about $50 billion in total were announced, including $15 billion from personal income tax. Government spending is at its highest level in 40 years, outside of the pandemic. There are 35,000 fewer homes being built. This is in Labor's own budget papers.

As a member of parliament, it's always tough when you get to say you've broken a promise. The Prime Minister has just made every member of parliament look bad, but in particular himself and the Labor members. I'm going to go through the times when he was asked about changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax. On 9 April 2025, when asked if he would rule out changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax, he said: 'Yes. How hard is it? For the 50th time.' For the 50th time he's admitting that he's not going to make any changes. From 17 to 22 April 2025, he repeatedly said there were no plans to change negative gearing or the capital gains discount, saying, 'I rule it out,' and, 'No plans.' On 22 April 2025, on live TV, the PM said he would not cut the capital gains discount. In August 2025, the PM repeated that the government would stick to the tax policy it ran on, saying, 'The only tax policy we're implementing is the one we took to the election.' Now, in May 2026, the PM acknowledged the government had changed its stance and said, 'We've changed our position.' It's a bit like Darth Vader in Star Wars when he says, 'We're renegotiating the deal.'

So many people went to that election knowing that, if the PM's word was his bond, they would be voting for the same capital gains tax, the same negative gearing and the same rules for trusts. Discretionary trusts are going to be hit really hard. From 1 July 2028, the budget proposes a 30 per cent minimum tax on discretionary trusts. Trust income is usually distributed to beneficiaries, who pay tax at their own rates. Under Labor, the trust itself would pay 30 per cent tax on its income first. As it goes in before distribution, less money would be available to distribute to family members and heirs. Trustees and families may need to restructure ownership, incurring legal, accounting and stamp duty costs. The ones who are really winning on this at the moment are the accountants. But, even when I talk to the accountants, they're saying they're hating it because they've got all their businesses in trusts too, so it's going to impact them. People have gone and put trust in Labor—in particular, when it comes to discretionary trusts. They now have to go to an accountant and pay money to actually get legal advice and potentially change their trust arrangements. We're not talking about 100 or 200 people. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of people.

In my previous role working with the multicultural community, I had a lot to do with our Indian community. I can say that there are a lot of Indian accountants out there. The main people they are serving are obviously from their own community because of language barriers et cetera, and they've advised them to use trusts. Tonight I messaged 10 or so multicultural people I know and business people, and all of them have trusts. We're not necessarily talking about people owning big companies. We're talking about the little guy or the family out there with a business. If the wife or the husband is not working for illness or whatever else, they just want to have the ability to put the money in the trust and actually disburse that money.

The other night I was at an event and was talking to electrical contractors. They're saying that the advice they've been giving their members for years is to set up trusts. I wonder how many tradies out there have set up trusts. So this is going to have a major impact. At the moment, if you look at Australia, you see we've got a situation where people are really struggling to make ends meet, and now small-business people have to fork out money to change their trust arrangements or, at the very least, get advice. This wasn't even mentioned prior to the election, so Labor can say, 'We didn't actually break our promise.' But I'll tell you what: no-one expected them to go after this.

When it comes to the capital gains tax, the old rule was a 50 per cent discount on capital gains for assets held for 12-plus months. The new rule is that the 50 per cent discount will be replaced by inflation indexation plus a 30 per cent minimum tax on gains, applying from July 2027. Again, the accountants are going to be trying to work out how much a property has grown in value after 2027 if it was purchased before that. You're going to have the ones doing well. Obviously the land value is coming out. Again, that's more money being paid from people who've gone into business and have gone into investments. Again, it's them who are paying the price. This policy raises taxes for ordinary Australians. As I said before, rental supply will be less and will obviously be much less in established areas because investors won't go there, and the new home buyer is going to be competing with an investor.

Sellers will often pay more tax under the new rule than under the old 50 per cent discount, which is obvious. Not just big investors but small landlords, retirees and long-term owners will face higher tax. These could be people who planned for their retirement 20 years ago, and now they're going to be hit. The higher tax reduces the take-home profit when the property is sold. Some investors may sell or stop buying established homes, which will, as I said, shrink the rental market. If you're a property investor, are you really going to go and buy an existing home when you can go and buy a new home with negative gearing and the capital gains benefit? That's where they're going to be going.

At the same time, they're going to be competing against the first home owner. Fewer rentals and fewer listings will push up rents. People that are on capital gains for retirement may get less income and less security. The new rules add complexity and require more accounting, valuations and of course paperwork. Replacing the 50 per cent discount with indexation plus a 30 per cent minimum means many sellers—especially lower-rate taxpayers and owners of long held assets—will pay more tax, get less after tax and face harder retirement and succession planning.

Remember: Paul Keating tried all this. It didn't work, and they had to bring it back after two years. That was when it comes to negative gearing. From July 2027, negative gearing will only apply to newly built homes. For properties bought after the cut-off, the rental losses can reduce your wages. They can only be used against further rental income or capital gains. Small landlords who buy existing homes are the ones most affected. Some landlords may sell up. It could mean fewer rentals and higher rents. New houses take years to build.

I've actually been out there in the past. I'm not negative gearing any properties at the moment, and I haven't for many years, but I have bought land, developed it and put three properties on it. I must admit it was during a bit of a crisis and I didn't make too much money out of it, but the builders actually went into liquidation. It wasn't an easy ride and it caused a lot of stress. That's probably why I never did it again. We're now expecting others to go and do the same thing, and when you're subdividing, you need town planners and everything else like that. So it's going to be really tough when it comes to this.

The budget is bad for young Australians. Labor's pitch to youth under the budget has not worked. Many believe they will be worse off under Labor. Youth are denied the pathways to buy a house and create wealth. As has been mentioned in parliament, the Prime Minister has benefited from negative gearing and from capital gains tax reductions. They're taking that away from generation X and millennials, and they're going to be the forgotten ones. A lot of them are hearing, too, that when they're investing in things like crypto they're going to get hit.

The budget's tax and housing changes risk making it harder and more expensive for young Australians to buy or rent homes. Homes won't appear overnight; building enough new homes takes years, so most young people won't see quick improvements. People who already own property keep the old tax rules, so the younger buyers will face competition. Small landlords will sell or stop buying because, as I said before, they won't want the stress of subdividing land, going through council and getting building permits et cetera.

Changes to capital gains tax make future profits harder to predict, which can scare off buyers. One thing, too, which we've seen in Victoria in particular, when it comes to the corruption of the CFMEU in the suburban rail project, money was diverted from the electorate of La Trobe, my electorate, which was for road sealing on Wellington Road and in the Dandenong Ranges. It was all put towards this Suburban Rail Loop, and the corruption there—I believe it's an amazing amount of billions of dollars.

We heard Premier Allan come out today and say there are no links to bikies et cetera. What a lot of rubbish. You've got the CFMEU and bikies—it's come out in the royal commission how they worked hand in glove, with paybacks, kickbacks and preferred building providers or suppliers and materials. It's corruption at its worst. When you're getting these huge wages for CFMEU members, when it comes to someone who wants a developer they're competing against builders and traders working on these major projects, and the CFMEU wages are forcing project costs—not only the rip-offs on these huge tunnels and the North East Link but also the local guy or family who have been trying to subdivide. They now have to compete with these massive wages. I just say to government members: you're going to lose seats over this because people on the ground are furious, especially small businesses and hairdressers who have their business connected to a trust—the tradies et cetera. They're all talking at the moment and they're letting their customers know, especially young people, that they'll be paying a lot more in the future when it comes to building, and they're not going to get the benefits, as the older generation have, when it comes to negative gearing and capital gains.

I come back to trusts and what Labor has done there. There are 800,000 trusts in Australia and people are now seeing their accountants—it's just a diabolical mess and it's going to make investment in Australia a lot tougher. When it comes to the IT sector, we've heard they want special dispensation for capital gains and investors. But you know what? It should be for any Aussie who's prepared to have a go at business and employ Australians. They must get the same advantages.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We live in challenging times where governments throughout the world struggle to meet the demands of the people they serve. Globally, people feel less secure and less confident in the future than ever before in my own lifetime. It's understandable, because for the last quarter of a century we've gone globally from one crisis to another—beginning with the Twin Towers bombing in the USA in 2001, then the subsequent wars in the Middle East, then the global financial crisis of 2007-08 through to about 2009, then the subsequent rise of ISIS, then being struck with the COVID pandemic across the world, followed by the war in Ukraine and, right now, events in Iran and the surrounding Middle Eastern region. All these are on top of the frequent and destructive natural disasters that we seem to now have on a fairly regular basis.

The rising tide of human displacement, the rapid change in technology and the frequent change of governments across the world also add to why it is absolutely clear that stability and confidence into the future has never been worse. Right now, throughout the world, the cost of living is the dominant issue facing most people. That's understandable because at the end of the day it's all about individual survival in the here and now. Whilst that is happening—and I understand that the focus is on the cost of living—issues such as climate change and environmental degradation, corporate greed and internal human conflicts in so many other countries are largely being neglected.

It is within this context that the Albanese government's 2026-27 budget was framed—that is, within a world of instability, uncertainty and insecurity. Trying to plan for the future when the issues around you are beyond your control, as we have seen with the bombing of Iran in the Middle East, is incredibly difficult. In fact, I can recall from the first day I walked into parliament. We had policies that the newly elected Rudd government was looking forward to implementing. Things have been derailed year after year—and I say that on behalf of the other side of politics as well, when they were in government. It's never easy when you can't plan with certainty. And yet that is exactly what is happening and why this budget, in my view, given all the conditions, the surrounding conditions around it, is indeed a very responsible budget. It factors in the uncertainty that we face and, at the same time, tries to correct some of the issues that need correcting whilst ensuring that we have a budget that is manageable and delivering for the people but also a budget that is responsible in terms of its fiscal responsibility.

There are a lot of things in this budget that I could talk about, but I want to begin with one that goes back, for me, from before I even came to this place. I was in local government for many, many years. As a South Australian, this issue is incredibly important. I'm referring to South Australian road funding. South Australian road funding, for decades now, has been a matter of contention between South Australia and the federal government. In the mid-nineties, it was cut, and ever since then South Australia has never received its fair share of local road funding. As a way of topping that up and ensuring that South Australia received its fair share, there was a fund called the Supplementary Local Road Fund for South Australia. That was established, and each year South Australia would get around $18 million to $20 million of additional funding to try and compensate for the underfunding it was getting. That underfunding was based on the fact that South Australia received about 5.5 per cent of the total funding for roads but in fact had 11.8 per cent of the national road network and about seven per cent of the population. So, whether you looked at funding on the basis of population per capita or population per road length, South Australia was getting less.

In this budget, finally, the Albanese government has locked in $230 million to continue the Supplementary Local Road Funding for South Australia for the next decade. In the past, it was only a year-by-year commitment, and I believe in one or two years we might not have even got it. I stand to be corrected on that. But it was a year-by-year commitment, which never allowed the South Australian local government authorities to plan with confidence in the future, because they didn't know until the very last minute whether that funding was going to be made available. The commitment to fund it for the next 10 years and to increase it by CPI is a godsend for South Australia, and I know it has been very, very warmly welcomed by the Local Government Association of South Australia. I say thank you to the minister for pushing that through, because it really will make a difference and it will be a welcome addition to funding that goes to South Australia.

The other issue that I want to talk about a little bit more at length is the issue of fuel security. Again, this is an issue that I can recall raising myself many times, both publicly and perhaps even in this place—that Australia needed to increase its fuel storage capacity. Again, successive governments, for whatever reason, were not able to do that. We were finally forced into a situation where we did it because of the war in Iran. I was pleased to hear the stats that were provided by the minister for energy today—and, I think, the Prime Minister earlier as well—which said we now have more fuel in Australia today than we did before the Iran conflict began. I am pleased indeed to know that we have some 43 days of petrol, 38 days of diesel and 31 days of jet fuel, when I can recall that those figures were nearly half a few years ago. That is something that I know makes me feel a lot more confident, and I also know that the people out there that we serve consider this an important issue for our long-term security. I commend all of the ministers that were involved, starting with the Prime Minister and, indeed, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, the Minister for Trade and Tourism and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, for their collective work to ensure that we now have the fuel supplies that we do.

More importantly, in this budget, we've committed over $10 billion to ensure long-term fuel security by increasing our fuel reserves in this country. Again, it is something that I believe needed to be done. It was done because of the situation we find ourselves in right now and the public demand to do so. But, to the Prime Minister's credit, $10 billion committed in this budget, I believe, is something that he should be recognised for. And, again, I think this will put Australia on a much more secure footing for well into the future.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the other matter I want to briefly speak about is something that I know is dear to your heart, and that is health. Apart from the cost-of-living, when I'm out there in the community, the issue that matters most to the people that I speak to is the health system of Australia. I recall going back to the Rudd days where transforming our health system was one of Kevin Rudd's main objectives. Again, it never happened. But that was 18 years ago where we recognised that the system was under stress and we recognised that something needed to be done. Each year, it's been a bit of a patch-up job. The Albanese government, with Minister Mark Butler as the Minister for Health and Ageing, has begun the road to transforming the health system in this country, and it is making a difference.

Beginning with increasing the bulk-billing payments for doctors, we are seeing a huge increase in the number of surgeries right across the country that are now bulk-billing. That not only saves people money but also ensures that people who cannot afford to go to a doctor will now do so rather than allowing themselves to become even more ill because they avoid going to a doctor because they couldn't afford it. Therefore, it's actually, in the long-term, a cost saving. When they become really ill, then they have to end up in a hospital, perhaps get surgery or whatever the case is. If you can treat the issue before you get to that stage, then it's better for the person and also better for the country as a whole.

In addition to that, we've seen the Medicare urgent care clinics across Australia. I believe we've now opened 136 with one more to go. That's 137 that will be out there, serving just about every part of Australia. Those urgent care clinics are taking pressure off the casualty departments of our hospitals. People are going to them, and I know that for a fact because I know people who have actually had the choice between going to the local hospital and to an urgent care clinic and chose the urgent care clinic for their medical needs. It is making a difference at a time when our hospitals also need a bit of relief and support in taking the pressure off them. Again, we're seeing that we are getting less people forced to go to hospital, more services out there and less cost to patients, and that's a good thing.

On top of that, we know that the Medicare urgent care clinics are going to be secure with $1.8 billion of funding that secures them well into the future. There will be an additional $25 billion of Commonwealth funding for our public hospitals. Again, this is all about making the health system much better into the future. I believe that we are seeing the changes right now, but we will be able to see an even better system as we move forward.

There are, of course, a number of other matters that, with the time I've got left, I will briefly touch on. The issue of taxation is one that has been debated both here within this place and throughout the community. Again, I say this: I accept that families are, indeed, struggling with cost-of-living pressures. But no government has done more to increase wages for the working people of this country than the Albanese government. We've committed to three tax cuts, we've committed to making the instant asset write-off permanent for small businesses, we've committed to the instant tax deduction of $1,000 for workers, and we've also now included the $250 working Australians tax offset. All of those measures together matter, and I understand that the total package and savings to workers at the end of the three tax cuts that we're providing could be as high as $2,800 for a worker.

Of course, people might still be struggling, but it's making a difference. This government recognises that people are, indeed, struggling with the cost of living and are taking whatever actions are necessary to try and assist, whether it's through the health system savings or whether it's through the taxation systems that we have in place. Yes, there has been some criticism of some of the tax changes that we are making, but, again, it's all about trying to make our system much fairer and much more equitable.

The last issue I will touch on in the two minutes I have left is the issue of housing. Again, for the last three or four years since the Albanese government was first elected in 2022, there's been this constant and ongoing debate about housing. The Albanese government has committed some $47 billion towards housing and building houses in this country. There's a whole range of different methods, whether it's shared equity, whether it's lower deposits, whether it's investing in new infrastructure, whether it's getting the councils and the states to work together to ensure that approvals are fast-tracked and signed. Every different strategy that will assist in building and increasing supply is on the table under this package, and it is working.

Of course, we cannot build houses overnight, but I can see the changes happening in my own state. I can see new developments rising everywhere. With the help of the state government and the federal government working together, I am seeing the changes, and we're now starting to see it in the market itself. This is a government that does care about young people being able to own their first home, and it is taking the necessary steps to assist them in order that they can do so. The various different strategies and funding streams that the government has provided into the housing market, I believe, will make a long-term difference for this country and certainly will make a difference to the lives of those young people that are looking to get into their own house.

This is a responsible budget for the times. Budgets are never easy. I can never recall walking into this chamber at budget time and listening to a government saying how easy it is to balance their budget. It's never easy. But under all the circumstances that Australia faces right now, this is the right budget for the times.

Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Sovereign Capability) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to the brutal reality of what this Labor government's budget has delivered. This budget is a formal declaration of economic surrender. What we're seeing is an administration that has completely run out of ideas and run out of money. As we all know, when Labor run out of money, they come after yours. Just over a week ago, the Treasurer delivered a budget that completely abandons everyday Australians at a time when they're facing the most acute financial pressure in a generation. These appropriation bills represent a written testament to the fiscal recklessness of this Labor government.

Every single week I hear from families, small business owners, farmers and manufacturers across my electorate of Dawson. They tell me the same thing: they are financially drowning. They're looking at the bills in absolute despair, trying to balance household budgets. They have been completely shattered by this Labor government, by the decisions that are made in this very building. When a family in Dawson sees their costs go up, they have to make immediate, painful choices. They cut back on meat at the butcher. They cancel the family camping weekend away. They turn the lights off early and go to bed just so they can afford to pay their electricity bill. They operate under the brutal laws of financial reality. If they do not have money, they do not spend it.

Yet, while the people of my electorate are making these gut-wrenching sacrifices, this out-of-touch Albanese Labor government refuses to display a single shred of restraint. This budget proves that Labor treats the hard-earned money of Australian taxpayers like a bottomless credit card. Labor is pumping billions of dollars of additional demand into an economy that is already running over the speed limit, fuelling the inflationary firestorm and ensuring that Australian families will suffer for years to come. This budget does not offer relief. It delivers a systematic, tax-heavy burden that snuffs out the great Australian dream of having a go and getting ahead. This is not a fair go for Australia. People are working harder for longer to go backwards.

What makes this appropriation bill so deeply offensive to the people of my electorate is that it comes at a time when the Albanese Labor government is enjoying historic, record-breaking revenue windfalls. Let us be entirely clear about where the money is coming from. It is not coming from the clever ideas of economists sitting in Canberra offices. It is being dragged out of the ground by the hardworking resources and agricultural sector in regional Queensland.

Debate interrupted.