Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

Labor's higher taxes are intergenerational fraud. They pull the ladder up on younger Australians who are trying to get ahead. There are young Australians who cannot afford a home. They are doing the responsible thing. They are saving. They are investing in shares, crypto or other assets. They are trying to build their futures. They're staying with mum and dad or friends for longer. They're house sharing. They're doing all of the things that they need to do to save for a future. Yet last night we saw the way that the previous generation built their futures taken away from them. Older Australians had the benefit of the capital gains tax discount while they built wealth. Younger Australians are now being told they won't get that same chance, and that is not fair. That is definitely not intergenerational equity. It means Australia will have one of the highest capital gains taxes in the world—a tax on saving, a tax on investing, a tax on aspiration. That's not reform; it's an assault on aspiration. It is about shutting the door on younger Australians when they are already locked out too much.

If you see a map of the house prices in South Australia—South Australia was once considered affordable. The unaffordability started going up a couple of years ago, but the greatest hike that has occurred has been on Labor's watch. The steepest hike in the price of houses in South Australia, once considered affordable, is on Labor's watch. The evidence is overwhelming. The evidence is clear.

The government has been spending at its highest level in 40 years, outside of a pandemic. For every $2, they are actually spending $3. This bill is passing onto the next generation of Australians higher taxes. Labor, it's your spending spree that means Australians face higher inflation, higher interest rates, higher taxes and a lower standard of living. That's coincided with your four years in government. Failed economic policies have contributed to that.

Young Australians are staring at a decade of deficits, with the debt bomb forecast to hit $1.2 trillion. Labor's own budget admits their new housing taxes will result in fewer houses and higher rents for young Australians, as if it wasn't tough enough. They're paying more for electricity, more for insurance, more for groceries, more for just about everything under Labor's watch, and inflation continues to rise so there's no hope for them that anything will change any time soon. Labor misled the Australian people when it went the election barely 12 months ago. Your changes, your backflips, are not the first and won't be the last, but this is a huge betrayal of Australians, a huge betrayal of young Australians, who are just trying to get ahead, and they can't do so because of your economic mismanagement.

Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For many young Australians, homeownership has shifted from being a milestone in adulthood to a distant aspiration. That Australian dream is crumbling in front of their eyes, and you can look at the evidence. Let's look at that evidence. The average age now for a first home buyer is 34 years to 36 years, ballpark. In the 1990s, it was in the late 20s. If you look at the graphs, it has been ratcheting up over the last 40 years. What has happened is that we have seen a decoupling of house prices from salaries. They completely diverged. They diverged under the Howard government, thanks to that interaction between negative gearing and capital gains tax. It supercharged it. After pouring on low debt, the whole thing exploded.

If you look at another metric, another piece of evidence, we're seeing that the national house-price-to-income ratio has rocketed over the last 50 years. In 1985, it was three to four times. That means it took around three to four years to be able to own a home. The national house-price-to-income ratio is now eight to nine times. In Sydney, it is 13 times. When it hits the eight to nine times, it's unaffordable. When it goes to extremely unaffordable, when it goes to 13 times, I don't think we have any language to describe that.

That is the evidence, but you don't need to look at the evidence, necessarily. You can just look at the faces of young Australians. They have lost hope. The longer they rent, the less chance they have of feeling secure and growing wealth, the longer they may stay with their parents in the family home and the less chance they have of meeting someone and maybe settling down and having children. Then we wonder why our fertility rate is in freefall.

This is at the heart of the budget—housing affordability. It is writ large across the sky. This is the issue, and I am done admiring this problem. This Labor government is acting. We are acting in the interests of millions of young Australians, and we have to. The moment is now, and we will fight this out with the coalition, who have said today that they may repeal these changes going into the next election, turning their backs on millions of young Australians who, by the way, are not an island. Those young people live with parents. They live with grandparents. They are connected to their communities; they are connected to their workplaces. Those older Australians are watching what we do in this chamber.

I speak as someone who is a property investor, but I bought my properties at a time when I thought governments were doing their job. I thought governments were investing in housing supply. Unbeknownst to me, over that period when the coalition was in power, they vacated the field. There wasn't even a housing minister for six of their 10 years. No money was put towards housing supply. It's taken this Labor government to invest $47 billion in increasing housing supply. That's the highest it's ever been in Commonwealth history. So, while we take the heat out of the property investment market, we also have to boost supply. (Time expired)

Leah Blyth (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we've seen from this Labor government is a whole lot of broken promises. And I lament, because I listened to them over there with their talking points, buying what the Prime Minister is trying to sell and what their Treasurer is trying to sell. But this is the highest-taxing government that this country has ever seen, and I have never ever seen a country anywhere in the world tax itself or its citizens into prosperity.

What we've got to remember here is that government has no source of money, and this government has been spending irresponsibly. They have been taking the people's money and spending it on all sorts of folly that has produced nothing for the Australian people. They talk about housing funds that deliver no houses. Those are taxpayer dollars. That is not their money; the government has none. That is the money of hardworking, everyday mum-and-dad Australians, who have worked hard and given over their hard-earned tax dollars. And what this government does to reward them is increase taxes. You don't get to a trillion dollars in debt by accident. You get to a trillion dollars in debt by mismanaging an economy.

Australia is a resource-rich nation. We would be one of the wealthiest nations in the world if we had a government who could actually manage the resources that we have. Instead, we have a government over here that would rather look at net zero fantasies and send Australia into poverty. So we've seen that Australians will pay, over the next four years, an extra $50 billion of their hard-earned money to this government, to be spent on whatever it feels like, whether that's net zero or subsidising Chinese EV carmakers. They are doing all of that. At the same time, they talk about housing supply and how young people and other Australians are struggling to get into the housing market.

What about those poor Australians, those young people who are living with their parents because they can't afford the rental market? The dream of putting a deposit down on a home is long gone. They're staying at home with their parents, and they are saving hard. Those young people are now going to be hit with the CGT and negative gearing changes. So if you stay home with your parents and your parents help you out, you're now going to be hit for that investment property, even if you plan on moving into it but can't afford to. This is the reality of this government. They have pulled the ladder up behind them, and they want Australians to believe there is a great divide, so they'll put the boomers against the young generation in Australia.

It doesn't have to be like that. We are a resource-rich country, and government needs to get out of the way. We need to stop letting 1.4 million people into the country over three years while building a fraction in housing supply. We need to be investing in hospitals and infrastructure. If we want to have high net migration in this country we have to make sure all our infrastructure keeps pace with that. This government has been irresponsible, and then they stand there and say: 'It's not our fault. We're going to spend more of your hard-earned money on trying to fix the problem we have started.' And ladies and gentlemen, for me, as soon as someone from the government comes along and says, 'I'm here from the government and I'm here to help,' we should all be very afraid—and I am very afraid, not just for my children but for everyone out there in Australia, with this government's budget.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The very first question really framed what was going to happen with the opposition questions today. And the very first response from Senator Gallagher, the Minister for Finance, really nailed on the head what this budget is all about. Senator Gallagher said in response to that first question that this budget is about making sure that generations of the future get a fair go. That's what it's all about. She went on to say that the opposition's response to that is to say no. They're already saying no. What exactly are they saying no to? They're saying no to future generations. They're saying no to fairness.

Last night, the Treasurer stood in the House and handed down a budget for the times that we're living through—not a budget written as though the world is calm, not a budget that pretends families are not under pressure and not a budget that says hard things can be left for another day. This is a budget that meets the moment. It helps people now, and it builds for the future. Australia is facing a serious global oil shock caused by the conflict in the Middle East. Australians did not choose this conflict. They do not control the global oil price, but they feel it in the cost of freight, at the bowser and in the family budget. The job of government is not to stand back and hope for the best; the job of government is to act. That is exactly what this budget does. It more than halves the fuel excise for three months, reduces the heavy vehicle road user charge to zero and invests in fuel security, cleaner fuels and stronger supply chains. That is resilience in practice: help now and strength for the future.

This budget is also about workers. Labor believes that, if you work hard, you should be able to get ahead. That is a simple promise. For too many Australians, it has been harder to believe. That is why this budget delivers a thousand-dollar instant tax deduction from 2026-27. It also delivers the new $250 Working Australians Tax Offset from 2027-28. In Tasmania, my home state, around 140,000 workers are expected to benefit from the instant deduction and around 270,000 workers are expected to benefit from the Working Australians Tax Offset. This is money going back to workers. It is a recognition that people who earn a wage, pay their bills and keep this country moving deserve a tax system that works better for them.

That brings me to housing. If there is one issue that cuts through in every community, it is the fear that the dream of owning a home is slipping away, and a Labor government cannot accept that. This budget says that we need more homes and we need to build them faster. It invests a further $2 billion in housing enabling-infrastructure—the roads, the water, the power and the sewerage that make new housing possible. Tasmania will be eligible for $50 million through this fund. Supply is the main game, but it's not the whole thing. The tax system has pushed too much investment into existing homes while too many first home buyers are locked out. (Time expired)

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The answers to coalition questions from the government today demonstrated that Australians cannot believe a thing that this government says. Young Australians cannot believe this government when they say this is about equity, because this budget goes after investment and savings across the board. It doesn't deliver anything for younger Australians. It won't make houses cheaper. Saving for a deposit on a home will take longer and will be taxed more. That's what this budget does. It will make it harder for a young Australian to save for and invest in a home. It is killing investment in innovation and it proves conclusively that no-one can believe what this government says.

Remember: they promised before the 2022 election that they would reduce electricity prices by $275. They promised that the cost of living would be lower. They promised a better cost of living. They promised that there would be no changes to superannuation. They broke that promise. They promised cheaper health care, and yet in this budget people over 65 charged up to an extra $1,600 for their health insurance. Forty per cent of admissions to public hospitals are people over 65, accounting for 50 per cent of bed nights, and, of the three million people over 65 in this country, about 1.0 to 1.2 million people are full pensioners who will be charged that extra slug. So much for cheaper healthcare for those pensioners who are going to be charged more.

They of course promised no change to negative gearing. They promised no change to capital gains tax and they promised no new taxes on trusts. It's a pretty comprehensive list, and they've broken every single one of those promises. So, when they stand up in question time and try to run a justification for it, why should anybody believe them? Why should we believe a thing this government says given the trail of broken promises they have left behind them over four years in government? You cannot trust a single promise this government makes.

Last night, Labor delivered a budget of deceit, and young Australians cannot believe this government when they say it's about equity, because it's about raising an extra $77 billion in tax.

Question agreed to.