Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. How does the responsible economic management at the core of this week's budget compare with the situation Labor inherited? And what approaches has the government rejected?

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

I appreciate the question from the member for Chisholm—she has already more questions to me with that one question than the shadow Treasurer in budget week. In the member for Chisholm's electorate, every one of the 81,000 taxpayers will get a tax cut and every one of the 75,000 households will get energy bill relief. That's because, as the Prime Minister said a moment ago, the cost-of-living relief in the budget is substantial and it is responsible, and it shows that responsible economic management is a defining feature of the government that this Prime Minister leads and it was a defining feature of the budget on Tuesday night as well. You see that in so many of the numbers which compare the situation that we inherited with the situation in the budget two years into our government.

We have been turning Liberal deficits into Labor surpluses. Last year we turned a $78 billion deficit into a $22 billion surplus. This year we're turning a $56 billion deficit into a $9 billion surplus. Next year: turning a $47 billion deficit into a deficit that is $19 billion better than what we inherited from those opposite. Gross debt will peak 10 percentage points lower because of our responsible economic management. That will help us avoid $80 billion in interest costs that those opposite tried to lumber us with. Under this government we banked 82 per cent of the upward revisions to revenue, versus 40 per cent under those opposite. Our real spending growth: 1.4 per cent, compared with 4.1 per cent under those opposite.

Our responsible approach is one of the reasons the inflation we inherited, with a '6' in front of it, now has a '3' in front of it and is heading towards having a '2' in front of it. Wages growth on our watch is almost double what it was under those opposite. Real wages were falling by 3.4 per cent when we came to office. They're now growing again, for the first time in years. And today we got another unemployment number, which showed that 820,000 jobs, most of them full-time, have been created on the watch of this Prime Minister and this government, and that is an important thing as well. So, we've been managing the economy in a methodical, balanced and cohesive way.

Tonight, in contrast, we will hear from the divisive leader of a divided party. They are all over the shop on nuclear, on tax breaks for the industries that will power our future and on housing. That coalition clown show of incompetence and incoherence has learned nothing from its time in office, when wages were stagnant and rorts and debts piled up and Middle Australia didn't get a look in. No matter what he says tonight, we already know that his nuclear negativity is no substitute for economic credibility. (Time expired)

Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister and concerns the government's capital gains tax discount for landlords. If we take a landlord—let's call him Anthony—he can increase the rent by however much he wants and evict his tenants so he can sell the property for a big profit. When selling the property he gets to keep 50 per cent of a $500,000 profit he makes, completely tax-free, thanks to Labor's handouts to property investors—

Hon. Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There's far too much noise. I can't hear the question.

Honourable members interjecting—

Order!

Order! The minister for the environment is not helping things. Every member deserves to be heard in silence with their questions—right across the chamber. Out of respect for the member for Griffith, he'll begin his question again.

Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister and concerns the government's capital gains tax discount for landlords. If we take a landlord—let's call him Anthony—he can increase the rent by however much he wants and evict his tenant so he can sell the property for a big profit. When selling the property he can get to keep 50 per cent of a $500,000 profit he makes, completely tax-free, thanks to Labor's handouts to property investors, which deny renters the ability to buy their first home. Does the Prime Minister think that's more than fair?

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

Thank you to the member for Griffith for his question about tax policy and housing policy. One of the things we are proudest of about the budget we handed down from this dispatch box on Tuesday night is the billions of dollars in new investments in housing. That's because we recognise that the housing pipeline we inherited after 10 years of neglect needs our urgent attention—and it's receiving our urgent attention. But, more than that, it is receiving $32 billion in investment, including $6 billion of new investment in the budget on Tuesday night. For this I pay tribute to the Minister for Housing and to the government for the way we have made building more homes for Australians a central economic priority of this government and this budget.

We don't ask for much. We ask for the parliament to support our efforts. And when we desperately needed those opposite to vote for more housing and when we needed—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer will just pause so I can hear from the member for Griffith on a point of order.

Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's on relevance. The question went specifically to the capital gains tax discount, and the Treasurer hasn't addressed it at all.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes. He has three minutes to address—there's not a time factor as to when he has to address all aspects, and he doesn't have to address all aspects. He's got to be directly relevant to the topic. I'm just going to ask him to return to the question.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to 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.