Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia. Will the Treasurer outline to the House the importance of a strong economy and how the housing market is important to hardworking Australian families? How would a reckless approach to taxation put our economy at risk?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for New England for his question. He knows that the Australian economy is growing strongly. You don't have to take my word for it. Today, Fitch, one of the world's leading credit rating agencies, reaffirmed Australia's AAA credit rating. This comes on the back of 3.4 per cent GDP growth through the year, the fastest rate of growth since 2012 in the height of the mining boom. This comes on the back of unemployment numbers last week at five per cent, the best since 2012. This comes on the back of a budget which is on track to come back to balance a year earlier than expected in 2019-20. And this comes on the back of Standard & Poor's again reaffirming our AAA credit rating.

All this good work is at risk from a Labor Party that wants to tax you from the cradle to the grave, a Labor Party with five big new taxes: taxes on your income, taxes on your business, taxes on your electricity, taxes on your savings and taxes on your property, with changes to negative gearing and capital gains. Today, the Labor Party frontbenchers and backbenchers have been tying themselves in knots over the negative gearing policy. Even though it was released two years ago, they don't know when it starts, they don't know how it works and they don't know what the impact will be on the value of the family home and on peoples' rents. The Leader of the Opposition tells us that, if you reduce negative gearing, property prices will go down. But what did the member for Rankin, the shadow finance minister, tell us today? The teary 'member for Kleenex', what does he tell us? The member for Rankin said today that, under Labor's negative gearing policy, housing prices will go up. Then the member for Hunter, in that famous interview with the member for New England, said, 'Under Labor's negative gearing policy, prices won't go up or down.' He wants it both ways. No wonder the member for New England said that the member for Hunter has no clue.

The reality is that, under Labor's policy and their changes to negative gearing, the value of your house will go down. Your rent will go up. The member for Lilley, when he was Treasurer of Australia, said it would be economically reckless to change negative gearing, economically disastrous to change negative gearing, but this Labor Party, desperate for revenue, is taking a sledgehammer to the family home.