Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Bracket creep! Labor Party budgets rely on bracket creep. Liberal Party budgets rely on bracket creep. Bracket creep is the government's dirty little secret, a hidden stealth tax. Inflation means Labor will quietly pocket tens of billions of dollars in extra taxes by simply doing nothing. As wages increase with inflation, taxpayers go up into higher tax brackets, paying higher tax rates, and no-one says a thing. We in One Nation are going to say something—again. We've been exposing this since this debate started, and we will fix it with an amendment.

Bracket creep is a stealth tax. Due to inflation, as wages increase, Australians move into higher tax brackets, while being able to buy only the same things with less money because, in the higher bracket, we pay more tax. Taxpayers effectively have less to spend on groceries and have less disposable income. Bracket creep amounts to a secret tax that the government keeps collecting to pay for their pet projects of questionable benefit. If the Liberals and Labor, the uniparty, want to increase taxes, they should put it in a bill, take it to an election and be honest with all Australians rather than quietly relying on bracket creep to secretly plug their budget holes and ratchet up income tax receipts.

Bracket creep should have been fixed a decade ago. Analysis from the Parliamentary Budget Office shows that, over the last decade, because of bracket creep Australians have had to pay an extra $44 billion that was stolen deceitfully. But shh! 'Don't tell the people because we didn't take the action to fix this 10 years ago.' Just over the next four years, bracket creep will mean Australians also pay an extra $38 billion in taxes—$38 billion extra! Labor told us that they were giving us a tax cut. Now you can see the truth; it's not a tax cut. If the government gets inflation under control, fixing bracket creep won't cost the budget anything. Australians don't deserve to pay for inflation twice because of government mistakes, and the budget shouldn't benefit from out-of-control inflation.

This is how you are paying twice: firstly, through inflation, because of an out-of-control government there are higher prices; and, secondly, by being lifted into higher tax brackets because of the higher wages that come with inflation, you have less spending power and less money overall.

The Liberals have made many comments about the scourge of bracket creep. This is your opportunity to fix it, once and for all. I urge all senators to stop the stealth taxation increases. How? Simply index the tax thresholds, the tax brackets. If Labor need any suggestions on areas of spending to fix so they don't have to keep secretly stealing more from Australians, they can consult One Nation's extensive network at Senate estimates for a few tips. Actually, we have lots of tips. We've exposed so much: the flawed $65 billion Hunter frigate program that Labor fiddled with and didn't cancel, the NDIS being on track to cost $100 billion every year, and up to $8 billion a year in Medicare fraud. They're all good places to start.

The Albanese government's outrageously high, or I should say 'record high and increasing', immigration intake is fuelling huge increases in rent and house prices. By the way, on the amendment I moved to Labor's so-called tax cut bill in this place few months ago, Senator Hume stood up on behalf of the Liberal Party and said that they agree with ending bracket creep—but not now. I think it was Senator Gallagher, the finance minister, who stated Labor's position as basically identical. They would 'love to cut out bracket creep'—but not now. A few weeks later, Liberal Senator Dave Sharma, in his first Senate speech, stated he has a goal of ending bracket creep, yet, a few weeks earlier, he had voted against it.

Let me get back to the second point. The Albanese government's outrageously high, record high and increasing, immigration intake is fuelling huge demand on rent and house prices. Rents, in the last five years, have gone up 52 per cent. Before COVID, the number of temporary visa holders in the country was around 2.3 million people. As at the end of July 2024, that number is now 2.8 million—more than 10 per cent of our population. These are hard numbers and facts, yet the government has continued to lie, claiming, 'We're just catching up on immigration.' Oh, really? We haven't just caught up; we've blown the record out of the water. We're nearly half a million people above the record. Using the average household size of 2½ people per house implies a need for more than 200,000 houses just to cater for new arrivals.

Last year, the Albanese government promised to crack down on the level immigration, yet there were 335,000 net arrivals in the first seven months of 2024. That's 15,000 people more than the same time the previous year. And that was a record, so we've got a new record. This is a huge reason why we're in a housing crisis, with rents skyrocketing and housing prices reaching new records, yet the government won't say a word about it. They're quiet, just like on the stealth tax and bracket creep.

The person responsible for this immigration program, Minister Clare O'Neil, has been now appointed as Labor's Minister for Housing. What a joke. The person who created the problem is now in charge of solving the problem. One Nation's proposal is practical common sense based on real-world data. Simply return the number of temporary visa holders in the country to pre-COVID levels, and that would immediately free up 200,000 houses. From there, immigration would be capped at the level for which Australia can build housing and infrastructure to cater for new arrivals.

In the middle of a housing catastrophe, there are hundreds of Queenslanders in cities—Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton, Gladstone, Maryborough, Bundaberg, Ipswich, parts of the Scenic Rim, the Gold Coast and Beaudesert—who are homeless, sleeping in cars. Working families are going home in the evening after work to see if their kids are still there. Where do they shower? Where do they toilet? We need to get houses for people currently sleeping under bridges, in cars, in tents and in caravans before we allow more new arrivals into our country. We must put Australians first, and we must put Australians in houses first.

What about demand for houses and foreign ownership? To reduce demand and open up more housing supply, One Nation would ban foreign ownership of residential property. Australians are banned from buying a house in China, yet China is the largest foreign buyer of real estate in Australia. A single real estate agent in Sydney sold $135 million in property to Chinese buyers in just six months. New Zealand and Canada, similar countries to ours, recently banned foreign ownership of housing. Putting Australians first is simple, clear and practical. Until we get Australian citizens out of tents and cars and into houses, we shouldn't be letting foreigners buy residential property. Under our proposal foreign owners would have to sell to an Australian buyer. If the foreign owners fail to sell in two years, the house would be subject to government auctions open to first home buyers only in the first round and, in the second round, to other Australians. All this is possible and can be done. It just takes truthful politicians with the guts and political will to put Australians first.

One Nation would ditch Labor's half-baked housing schemes, including its so-called Help to Buy scheme and the Housing Australia Future Fund. Both add huge numbers of bureaucrats, who do not build houses. We would replace the bureaucrats with a new program called the people's mortgage scheme, offering government issued mortgages at five per cent fixed interest for 25 years. There would be no variable, changing interest rate. They would be cheaper than current mortgages from a bank, with minimal risk to the taxpayer thanks to the long-term, fixed nature. Forget the government owning your home under Labor's Help to Buy. Instead, One Nation will make sure the government helps you own your own home in full.

Many first home buyers can't get a loan because of HECS debts, and that raises another point. Under One Nation's people's mortgage scheme, first home buyers can roll their HECS debt into the mortgage to pay it off. That will give them access to a mortgage that they can't get anywhere else and let them start buying their house early, over the years making that purchase of the house far cheaper, with lower interest.

I'll now go to the supply side. All these policies must go hand in hand with huge improvements to the supply of housing. We need to build more houses, so we'll need to review construction codes and the undersupply of materials. Builders are currently drowning in a sea of red tape. Every single new home must be built to an NDIS silver level standard. Construction consultants estimate this requirement alone adds $50,000 to the cost of a new dwelling. We should make efforts to take care of our severely disabled, yet we cannot increase the cost of every new home by $50,000 while we're in an affordability crisis and a housing shortage. The National Construction Code must be simplified so that tradies can get on with the job. We need valued tradies and builders spending more time swinging a hammer than flipping through paperwork.

Next, I'll go to supply and materials. One Nation would apply a three-year holiday for the goods and services tax, charged currently on building materials. We need more houses built. Government should not be standing in the way of someone building their first house because the government wants to collect GST on the transaction. We need to open up our timber supplies. Australia is a huge continent and has abundant timber reserves. Despite this, we're in the unbelievable and ridiculous situation of needing to import timber from countries with environmental standards below ours. The Greens and Labor want to gut our timber industry yet bring more migrants into Australia in record numbers. A sustainable timber industry is Australia's prime renewable resource. It literally grows back every year. One Nation supports our timber industry to ensure we have the supplies to build houses sourced right here in our country. There are other details and initiatives in our comprehensive, practical and proven immigration and housing policies which will have a major impact on reducing the cost of living and government debt.

Foreign multinationals pay little or no company tax, due to choosing to adopt globalist policies under both the Liberal and the Labor parties. Foreign ownership is very high—90 per cent of Australia's largest companies are foreign owned and, since 1953, have paid little or no company tax, according to the former deputy commissioner of taxation Jim Killaly—due to the Liberal and Labor party governments choosing to adopt globalist policies. In housing there is record and rising immigration due to both parties choosing to adopt globalist policies. We have record and rising energy prices—the fundamental key to economic productivity and our competitive advantage. Why are they rising? Because the Liberal and Labor parties are choosing to adopt globalist policies.

I've said it before: under Liberal-Labor uniparty governance over many decades, our parliament has ceded sovereignty and governance to unelected and unaccountable parasitic globalist entities like the United Nations, the United Nations World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum. It has ceded to unelected, unaccountable, parasitic global wealth funds like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and First State.

I thank Senator Scarr for his motion and for the opportunity to speak. This is an essential topic for all Australians and all Queenslanders. Instead of ceding sovereignty to foreign corporations and unelected foreign bodies, One Nation policies work to a very simple vision: to restore our country so Australians abound and thrive. Abundance is not a dirty word. We have one flag, we are one community and we are One Nation.