Ellie Whiteaker (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The 2026 Labor budget delivers more tax cuts and a fair shot for young people at buying their own home and strengthens Medicare for all Australians. This budget is great for workers, great for young people and great for Western Australians.

To my home state, the budget delivers $20.8 billion in funding, including $9.5 billion in GST payments. That is a real investment in WA's services, infrastructure and future—I know you will agree with me, Acting Deputy President Cox. We're delivering more tax cuts for Western Australians to help with the cost of living, with 730,000 Western Australian workers to benefit from the new $1,000 instant tax deduction from 2026-27, and around 1.5 million WA workers will benefit from the $250 working Australians tax offset from the following year. This is practical and targeted cost-of-living relief for people who are working hard but still feeling the pressure. That's on top of cutting fuel taxes to save money for every Australian when they fill up at the petrol browser.

In housing, we're levelling the playing field for first home buyers, with a fairer tax system; our investments to make housing more affordable, including our five per cent home deposit scheme; and our plan to build more homes. In this budget we will also deliver what Western Australian local governments need to build local infrastructure like water, power and roads to unlock more housing supply, with at least a quarter of that dedicated to regional projects.

WA's 14 Medicare urgent care clinics have already delivered more than 313,000 fully bulk-billed visits since the network began in 2023, and those urgent care clinics are now a permanent part of Medicare, under this Labor budget. There are now 234 fully bulk-billing practices in WA because of Labor's bulk-billing practice incentives, with many more to come, I'm sure. Importantly, for my local community the budget delivers an additional $552 million for Anketell Road upgrades to get us moving on Westport. Plus there's $4 million for the Great Northern Highway, from Broome to Kununurra, making our rural and regional roads safer for everyone.

While the Treasurer, Minister Gallagher and the Labor team have been working hard putting together a budget for ordinary Australians, working Australians, young Australians and Western Australians, the Liberal Party have been yet again distracted; their eyes have been off the ball. Last night Senator Cash was really quick to the socials to criticise our changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing. It's funny that the loudest critics are often those with the most skin in the game. I think that, if Senator Cash spoke to people of my generation—millennials right across the country and certainly in our home state of Western Australia—she would understand that young people, my generation and the generation below me and the generations to come, want the government to take action to make owning their own house a real opportunity that exists. That is what Labor is doing.

Of course, the Liberal Party's relatively newfound friends in One Nation also take issue with a fair go for hardworking Aussies, but, again, that's probably what you'd expect from Senator Hanson, who instead of talking to battlers is being gifted planes by billionaires. But actually I should correct myself: it's not new that the Liberal Party are cosying up to One Nation. In fact, in 2017 Senator Cash was having secret meetings with One Nation, talking about doing preference deals with them back then. So it seems to me that this is just the same old Liberal Party. I guess, when you run out of reasons to explain your policy stance, there's always that old standby of blaming migrants and people who are doing it tough. What really unites the Liberal Party and One Nation is the same old tired playbook. I hope that we see something different from the Leader of the Opposition tomorrow night when he delivers his budget reply, but I doubt it.