Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian Greens will not be supporting the motion that is currently before the chair. It's important that all senators and folks listening to this debate understand how we have got to where we are today. The Liberals when in government put in place a massively regressive tax package. They legislated it. It was regressive for a range of reasons, including the fact that it massively flattened out the income tax regime in this country. It was legislated because the Australian Labor Party gutlessly voted for it at the time. Now the Australian Labor Party has come with a proposal that will make this massively regressive tax plan—legislated because the Coles and Woolworths of Australian politics supported it in the last parliament—slightly less regressive. Let's be clear about that. Labor's proposal doesn't make Australia's tax system more progressive than it currently is; it simply ensures that after 1 July it will be less regressive than it otherwise would have been. The fact that it would have been massively regressive is on the shoulders of both the LNP and the ALP in this place.

What Labor could have done is, for example, come into this place with a package that meant that no high-income earners received a tax break, and they could have used the savings that that policy would have generated to improve much-needed social services in this country. For example, they could have used the savings to help put dental care into Medicare. We've had a massive celebration from Labor about 40 years of Medicare, and rightly so. It's a great social reform in this country. But, if Labor were serious about celebrating Medicare, it would do things like put dental and mental health into Medicare, because, last time I looked, the mouth and the brain were actually parts of the human body.

What we have seen is Labor quite rightly saying, 'When economic conditions change, so should government policy.' Big tick on that! I couldn't agree more. So let's talk about negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. What those obscene taxpayer subsidies to property investors mean is that people who are currently renting in Australia, who are getting smashed by high rents and who desperately want to buy their first home are going into the market and being outbid by property investors because those property investors have pocketed—and will pocket into the future—massive subsidies from the public purse in the form of negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. It is a grossly unfair and inequitable system, and it is stopping hundreds of thousands of young Australians fulfilling their dream of owning their first home because the property investors, many of whom are racking up their fifth, 10th, 20th or 100th investment property, have got those public subsidies in their pockets, ready to use to outbid young people, who are getting smashed in the rental market and who desperately want to be able to afford their own home.

Economic conditions change; so should government policy. The Labor Party should reform the negative gearing and capital gains tax policy settings to give young Australians a fair crack at buying their first home and not have so many young Australians being outbid by wealthy property investors who are able to outbid them because of the massive, obscene taxpayer subsidies that they get through negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount.

We won't be supporting this motion today for all of those reasons. In addition, the Liberals have got it listed as a matter of public importance for later on in the day. They'll get plenty of chance to have their say. So will we. So will the government. So will other crossbenchers. But, for now, let's just get on with the job of the Senate.