Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Finance, Minister Gallagher. With inflation and rate rises compounding existing housing and inequality crises, we need real action to address cost-of-living pressures. The Parliamentary Budget Office said Mr Morrison's stage 3 tax cuts will cost $224 billion over 10 years, whereas building a million affordable social homes over 20 years would be an investment of $128 billion, with only a $27.3 billion cost to government. Why are you backing the already wealthy rather than fixing the housing crisis, which is far cheaper?

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, we're doing both. We will implement our election commitments, and one of those was—and we asked many times around this—around the stage 3 tax cuts. They have been legislated by the previous parliament, and we are not going to change that. That was our policy, and we made that decision probably 18 months before the campaign. As the Prime Minister has said, we will do in government what we said we would do during the campaign and in opposition.

On the housing crisis, yes, that means absolute priority attention from government. This is another one of those areas where nine years of neglect and refusal to work with states and territories have left us in the position that we are in now. We will pick up the mess left by the former government and work constructively with states and territories on how to best deal with the crisis in housing, particularly for those who need housing at the affordable end. We also have our Housing Australia Future Fund, which is one of those key commitments that we will roll out through the budget process to make sure the Commonwealth is back in the game of housing and housing policy, which those opposite absolutely neglected and didn't treat with the priority that they should have been dealt with for the nine years they were in government. We didn't have a housing minister for a long time. We didn't have a national housing policy; I don't think we ever had a national housing policy. These are the things that need fixing, working across the states and territories. They have a big stake in the game here and work with the federal government on improving access to housing and opportunities for housing, and we will do that.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Waters, first supplementary?

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

ERS (—) (): The PBO says fossil fuel subsidies will cost $117 billion over the decade. The PBO also says that cancelling student debt would cost $65 billion. Why are you backing the fossil fuel companies to cook the climate instead of helping young people deal with the cost of living?

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think these are the PBO costings of the Greens' policy commitments that they took to the election, and we are not implementing the Greens' policy commitments. That's the short answer to the question, but—

Hon. Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister Gallagher, please resume your seat. I'm waiting for quiet.

Senator Birmingham and Minister Watt! Minister Gallagher.

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Having said that, I don't want to dismiss or trivialise the issue of costs of living for everybody at the moment, including young people. Particularly for those lower income households, there's no doubt that higher inflation and higher than expected inflation—significantly higher than what was in the PEFO update before the election—is putting enormous pressure on households, as are the rising interest rates, which are increasing because of this inflationary environment we're in. So government does need to focus on this. We are focusing on it. That's why the policies we took to the election are even more important to implement now.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Waters, a second supplementary?

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

WATERS (—) (): The PBO says that a corporate super profits tax would raise $286 billion over a decade and that adding dental and mental health care into Medicare would cost around a third of that at $100 billion. Why are you backing the big corporates instead of people who can't afford to access the health care they need?

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Again, those were Greens policy commitments taken to the last election. They didn't form part of Labor's policy agenda. We are absolutely about implementing our policy commitments to put downward pressure on the cost of living, to lower the inflation that's ravaging the community and to put downward pressure where we can on people's cost of living. That is fundamentally a top priority for this government, and our policies on child care, on skills, on the National Reconstruction Fund and on the Powering Australia plan are all designed with that in mind—

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Thorpe!

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

to deal with some of those supply constraints in the economy and to put downward pressure on costs of living for Australians.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.