Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Bill 2026, Income Tax Rates Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Bill 2026

Ms BRISKEY (Maribyrnong) (13:13): Australia has always been a country of aspiration and opportunity, a country that holds true to a simple promise. In decades past that promise was realised on the factory floors in Airport West and along the railway line that stretches from Kensington to Glenroy. It was the promise idealised by the migrant families who came with nothing but courage and built our north-western suburbs of Melbourne out of sheer hope and hard work.

The promise was simple: if you work hard and if you do the right thing by your family and the community, then this country will give you a fair go back, a home, a sense of security, a life a little better than the one before. That is a promise I grew up believing in. It is a promise that the people of my community still believe in, even though, for too long now, many have watched it quietly slip out of reach for them while they hold up their end of the bargain.

Well, today, the Albanese Labor government restores its end of the bargain. This is the kind of reform that governments talk about and flinch from and that gets put in the too-hard basket election after election. But this Albanese Labor government is getting it done.

Opposition members interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Chesters ): Order! The member will be heard in silence, just as the Leader of the Opposition was heard in silence. Ms Briskey: What does restoring our end of the bargain look like?

It's a tax cut for more than 13 million working Australians, it's 75,000 more Australians getting the keys to their own home and it's $3.5 billion in new tax relief flowing to the businesses and the startups, the dreamers and the doers who back themselves and build something. This is what being pro aspiration, pro worker and pro investment looks like. Despite inheriting a decade of reckless economic management from those opposite, our government is doing all of this the responsible way.

The revenue raised comes straight back to workers and businesses in the near term, and, together with the savings we've found, it leaves the budget stronger for the long term. Our government takes our duty to the next generation seriously, and we're doing it at the same time as we strengthen Medicare, secure our fuel supply and ease the cost of living. Good governments listen to their constituents and are not afraid to undertake the reforms the moment requires.

At the heart of these bills is an issue that has been 40 years in the making—40 years of a housing crisis quietly compounding until younger Australians found themselves left to carry the weight of decisions made long before they could vote. If we were to go back 40 years, the beautiful suburbs that make up my electorate—like Ascot Vale, Essendon, Moonee Ponds, Keilor East, Avondale Heights and Tullamarine—were not home to the wealthy.

Many were not considered the leafy or trendy suburbs they are today. These are the suburbs that working people built, brick by brick, on the wages of hard work, suburbs that, at the time, were all many working families could afford. I want to be clear for those opposite: they are the suburbs that immigrants proudly helped build.

For generations, a nurse, a teacher, a tradie, a retail worker could buy a modest home on one of these streets and raise their family there. Now ask yourself, 'Can they today?' Can the young nurse finishing her shift at the Royal Children's Hospital afford a home in the suburb she grew up in? Can the apprentice in Keilor East doing everything right, saving every spare dollar, ever hope to outbid an investor buying their fifth property?

For too many of them, the honest answer is no, and we should be frustrated about that. I'm frustrated about that, because this didn't happen by accident. In 1999, Howard and Costello reached into the tax system and tilted the playing field.

They handed out a 50 per cent capital gains discount not for building something but for buying an existing property and simply waiting for the price to climb, and climb it did, faster than wages, year after year, until an entire generation found the door to homeownership close in their face. What did those opposite do when they had the chance to fix it? They did nothing.

They did worse than nothing: they defended it. They continue still. Election after election, scare campaign after scare campaign, they choose their own interests over the aspirations of young Australians.

Now, they've added the One Nation anti-immigration lines to their talking points. That is the distortion that has allowed the housing market to be tilted against younger Australians. With these bills, we seek to level that playing field once again.

From 1 July 2027, we replace the 50 per cent discount with a cost base indexation and a 30 per cent minimum tax. In plain language, it means capital will be taxed on real gains, taking into account inflation. We are bringing the capital gains discount back to its original purpose.

We are taking the taxpayers' thumb off the scale, and we are limiting negative gearing to residential property to new builds. The scare campaign is already being rolled out by those opposite, and, of course, it's riddled with misinformation. Quite frankly, it's disappointing to see members opposite disregard facts in favour of their own political survival.

What those opposite know and are just ignoring is that, if you already own an investment property, if you're already negatively gearing, nothing changes for you. The reforms are grandfathered—full stop. From this point on, the incentive in our tax system will reward the people who help build the homes Australia needs while also building their own wealth.

We're no longer accepting young people being outbid by investors who have taxpayer support on their side on the houses they already have. We have done this carefully. We've applied the changes across all asset classes so we don't fix one distortion and open up another.

We've kept every existing small-business capital gains concession in place, and, as the Treasurer's outlined, we're consulting further on startups and businesses with a low cost base. This is a reform delivered in tranches, exactly the way the GST was and exactly the way every economic reform in this country has been: methodical, responsible, built to last. Underneath all the mechanics, what we are trying to achieve is fairness, opportunity and hope.

It's 75,000 more Australians with the keys to their own front door. That's 75,000 more times that someone in a suburb like mine gets to stand in a backyard that is finally theirs. That's 75,000 more families with the stability and security that comes with owning your own home.

That is what this is all about. That is the promise of a fair go made real. We don't want to stop at the front door.

We're backing the people walking through it, out to work, every morning. Schedule 3 of this bill creates the working Australians tax offset: a new, permanent $250 tax cut for 13.3 million Australians who earn their income through work. It's automatic.

It lands in your tax return—no forms, no fuss—and it lifts the effective tax-free threshold for workers by nearly $1,800. I love this measure and I'll tell you why. It is built on a belief that the Labor Party has always understood: for most people, and above all young people, your income comes from the work that you do, from turning up, working hard and having a go.

Around two-thirds of Australians who benefit from these reforms are millennials and gen Z. Our Labor government is looking the next generation square in the eye and saying: 'We see how hard you're working. We know it is tough out there, and we are on your side.' Alongside this, schedule 4 delivers the $1,000 instant tax deduction we promised to the Australian people at the last election.

From next financial year, 6.2 million workers are better off, and the tax office tells us it will save Australians $380 million in compliance costs every year. This goes beyond just the deduction. It's the shoebox of receipts no longer needed.

It's the dread of tax time gone. Whether you're a tradie with the tools, a teacher buying supplies or a hospo worker with real expenses above that threshold, you can still claim those items, as well as your union fees and other charitable donations. Put it all together with three rounds of tax cuts, and the average Australian worker is better off by almost $3,000 by 2028.

Our government believes Australians should keep more of what they earn, and that is why we are embarking on these reforms. I started talking about a promise: the promise that hard work earns a fair go. That promise was made throughout our community long before I was its member.

For 25 years, that promise has been fraying. A generation has done everything we've asked of them. They've studied.

They've worked. They've saved. They've built on our construction sites.

They've taught in our classrooms. They've served as frontline workers. And they've watched the door close anyway.

They deserved better—they still do—and we owe them more than just rhetoric. We owe them action. Those opposite had their chance.

In fact, they had multiple chances and they chose the status quo every single time. They choose cheap politics and their wealthy mates over the aspirations of young Australians trying to get ahead. That is their record, and no scare campaign can rewrite it.

That is why our government is undertaking these reforms, which are different from what has come before. They are structural, permanent and truly generational, and that is why those opposite hate them. Labor is taking the thumb off the scale that has pressed down on young Australians for a quarter of a century and is putting fairness back at the centre of our tax system.

I know there are many in my community who have started to wonder whether the Aussie dream, which their parents fulfilled, has expired before their turn has come. Our government believes it hasn't. We have not given up on you, and, with these bills, we are proving that today.

We are levelling the playing field for all Australians wanting to get ahead. We're giving Australians who thought they'd never have the chance to own their own home a fair crack. We're delivering more tax cuts for every worker.

There are some who'd rather protect the status quo and stand in the way of aspiration. We won't. We're building a country where effort is rewarded and everyone gets a fair go.

I commend the bills to the House.