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

Two weeks ago, the Treasurer delivered the fifth Albanese Labor government budget. It was a strong, measured budget set to deliver for every Australian. Most importantly, it included fundamental tax reforms, making our tax system fairer for generations to come. To echo the words of the Treasurer, and those of the Assistant Treasurer in the chamber today, our tax reforms are built on three core objectives: delivering tax cuts for every Australian worker, making it easier for Australians to get into their first home and better aligning the tax treatment of those who earn their income from work, from their labour, with those who earn income derived from assets to get a level playing field in that space so that we can level the playing field for people to actually get their first asset.

I represent a community that has grown. My first memory of seeing the population sign in Werribee, where I was born, was when it said 13,000. The city of Wyndham, which is the extrapolation of that small country town of Werribee, now has a population of over 330,000. I was elected in 2013. In 2013, I was the member for Lalor, and my electorate was the city of Wyndham. Thirteen years later, I'm the member for Lalor with half the city of Wyndham. The growth has been extraordinary and sustained over 40 years. There has been sustained dramatic growth because we are the place in Melbourne where people move to build that affordable home or purchase that affordable home. So in the debate that has been occurring around homeownership, my views might be slightly different to people who represent inner city seats because mine is not a community where parents say, 'My child's priced out and can't buy a home where we live now.' Mine is the community where the children of someone from the inner city are coming to buy their first home because we are still the place for affordable housing.

Let's just put that into perspective. I'm talking to Victorians. Let's put Sydney aside, because Victorians struggle to even think about house prices in Sydney, and I know the Assistant Treasurer will be nodding along with me. When I bought my first home in Werribee, I bought a home on spec. I was a teacher, and my husband was an electrician. We bought a home on spec for $62,000. It is hard to fathom that the average price of a home in the city of Wyndham is now about $650,000. This budget is about making sure that the kids who grow up in Victoria can afford to buy a house in what we consider to be the affordable suburbs that I represent. That's what this budget's about.

In my vast, multicultural community, there are a lot of people who, once they've bought that first home and the minute they can afford it, buy an investment property. There are a lot of families who have done that in my space. I'm really proud that this budget has landed in a place where their investments and the processes around those investments have been grandfathered so that they can continue to negatively gear that property. I'm really pleased that we've landed in that space, because otherwise they'd feel that we didn't have faith in them or that we weren't supporting them. So I'm really pleased that that's the case. But I'm more pleased that we've got it right so that future people who want to invest in property will be encouraged by the positioning to invest in new builds so that we can support the supply of housing and increase that supply and put downward pressure on the rising price of houses.

I'm really thrilled about this budget because I think it gets that right. For someone who represents working people who mostly pay income tax on income derived from their labour, I'm really proud that we're going to balance that up. And I'm really proud that, at auctions this Saturday, first home buyers won't have so many investors trying to outbid them to purchase that first home.

House adjourned at 16:59