Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks, Mr Speaker—a question about housing policy and tax policy. I'll deal with the housing policy first, and I'll come to the tax part of it in a minute. We're very proud of the investments we're making in housing. The difference between this side of the House and that side of the House is that we want to build homes and they want to wreck super. That's the difference in the big parties in the parliament. The big clash of ideas in this parliament is that we want to build more homes and they want to wreck super. That's the difference, and we'll hear more of that rubbish tonight about raiding people's superannuation as a substitute for the decent, methodical housing policy that this minister and the government has put in place—something that we're very proud of.

In addition to asking about housing policy, the honourable member also asked about tax policy, and there is a change in the budget to capital gains tax. The change in the budget to capital gains tax, which will raise more than half a billion dollars, is to align the capital gains treatment for foreigners with the capital gains treatment for Australians. This is one of the ways that we are methodically, in a considered way, repairing the tax base so that we can fund important things like helping with the cost-of-living, strengthening Medicare, reforming our universities and investing in more skills to build a future made in Australia.

So there's tax reform in the budget—capital gains tax reform in the budget. There's a massive investment in housing because the government—rather than just playing a dodgy dog whistle like this opposition leader does, rather than the clumsy cliches that we'll hear from the opposition leader tonight and rather than their efforts to wreck super versus our efforts to build more homes—have got a housing policy that we are proud of. They will play their usual nasty, negative politics about it.

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