Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Hansard source

The strangest thing about this whole debate on tax is the absence of ambition. Just last night we heard Dr Leigh, who's apparently an assistant minister in the government, proclaiming the Labor Party's changes to the stage 3 tax cuts as a tax reform. To use an old-fashioned saying, I'd have to eat my hat if that is tax reform. If reinstating a tax bracket which has already been abolished by the parliament is tax reform, then my hat will disappear down my throat in obviously a painful sort of way.

There is a real lack of attention given to the major challenges facing the nation. We are a country which is very heavily reliant upon company and personal taxation—one of the highest in the OECD. One of the only reforms in the past few years that were worth noting at all was the changes to personal income tax during the last couple of parliaments. That's all now at an end, which is very sad because it's going to mean that more Australians will pay more tax over the medium to long term. Effectively, by reversing the stage 3 changes, the government has now locked in bracket creep on a permanent basis.

But, of course, this is also a debate about taxes that Labor would like to put in place. These taxes in relation to housing are a real prospect and a real risk to the Australian community. The reason that Labor is now having to countenance playing around with taxes on housing is because its housing policy has completely failed. It has sunk into the sand because its plan to build and supply more houses has failed. Chris Minns, the New South Wales Premier, laughs at the federal government here and says, 'We won't even build half the houses that Canberra has asked us to build.' So it's a big fail on supply. It's a big fail when it comes to the Housing Australia Future Fund, which is a boondoggle for Labor union mates. And, of course, underlying all of this is Labor's giving up on Australians owning their own house.

As we move to the next elections, the Australian people will have a very clear choice between a Labor Party that believes that big super funds and foreign fund managers should own the houses; the Greens party, which supports a government property developer, thereby giving up on the private economy; and the Liberal-National coalition, which believes that the people should be able to own Australian houses. For that to be realised there'll have to be an end to the demonisation of the construction building and property development sectors. We hear all the time from the Greens and the Labor Party that they're terrible people and can't be trusted to do anything. I'm not sure who the other parties think built modern Australia.

There is going to be an important role for private capital to support the houses of tomorrow—the houses we need to see for our children. That is a reality, so we need to get back to a position where the government of Australia is going to support more supply and follow through on those plans. In question time today we heard Senator Gallagher proudly boast that the government had a target for building houses. That's great. I've got targets for lots of things—some I meet and some I don't. This is a pretty important target, because the way to address the shortfall in the cities is through more density and more houses. That is the way to do it. But it also means we need to be creative with our solutions, which is why the Liberal Party has put forward the idea that people should be able to use their own money to purchase their own house using their own superannuation—if they so wish. What is wrong with giving people options?

I think, ultimately, the Labor Party now is looking at negative gearing and capital gains tax fiddles, but even if they did that it would only have an impact of between one and four per cent on the prices of dwellings in Australia, so it would be a very small thing—I'm so pleased that so many people could come and listen to this particular address! Thank you, Senator Rice!—it would only have a very small impact on overall pricing.

Ultimately, people have a very clear choice between the Liberals, who want the people to own the houses; the Greens, who want government to own the houses; and Labor, who wants big super and foreign fund managers to own houses.