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

Ms KARA COOK (Bonner) (19:02): I rise to speak on the Treasury and income tax bills. At the heart of these bills is fairness. It's about recognising that, while Australia has changed, too many parts of our tax system have not changed with it.

It represents the first stage of the most significant package of tax reforms Australia has seen in a generation. These bills are making sure aspiration and opportunity are not reserved for a fortunate few but remain within reach for every Australian prepared to work hard and build a future. These bills have three clear objectives: to deliver more tax relief for Australian workers, to make it easier for people to buy their first home and to better balance the way our tax system treats income earnt through work and income earnt through assets.

It does this through four key reforms. There's a new $250 working Australians tax offset for more than 13 million Australians, and a $1,000 instant tax deduction to make tax time simpler and put more money back in workers' pockets because Labor wants you to earn more and keep more of what you earn. It also reforms future negative-gearing arrangements so they better support new housing supply from 1 July 2027, and it makes changes to capital gains tax that restore its original purpose, ensuring that Australians are taxed only on real gains rather than on both the real and inflation driven gains.

One of the clearest messages I hear in Bonner is that people want a system that rewards effort. People understand that success should be encouraged but also understand that fairness matters. They understand that, if working Australians feel like the system is stacked against them, confidence in the future begins to erode.

That is why these bills deliver practical tax relief for workers, including the new working Australians tax offset of up to $250 each year for more than 13 million Australians. This includes many people working across Bonner, where there are more than 80,000 people employed. This is permanent tax relief directed at working people.

It's not temporary support or a one-off payment. It's permanent relief. It will make a real difference to working Australians, including the nurse in Carindale working long shifts, the teacher in Tingalpa, the tradie in Murarrie travelling between jobs, the truck driver in Hemmant keeping goods moving and finally, down to the southern end of my electorate, the office worker in Mount Gravatt who might be trying to balance the rising costs of a mortgage or rent.

People who work hard deserve to earn more and keep more of what they earn. This government believes that, when it is responsible to do so, we should reduce the tax burden on working Australians. We have already delivered tax cuts to every Australian taxpayer by lowering rates and lifting thresholds, and the relief does not stop there.

Another round of tax cuts will begin on 1 July, with further reductions commencing again the following year. Combined with the measures in these bills, the average Australian worker stands to receive up to $2,816 in tax relief by 2028. That is meaningful support.

These bills also introduce a $1,000 instant tax deduction for the 2026-27 income year. Tax law is not always exciting, but I think most Australians can agree that making tax time simpler is a good thing. Millions of Australians are currently keeping receipts, logging expenses and navigating complicated claims for relatively small deductions.

Under these reforms, eligible workers will be able to claim a standard deduction instantly. It will be simple and straightforward, involve less paperwork and less complexity and, importantly, put money back in their pockets. For the average worker, that means hundreds of extra dollars at tax time.

More than a quarter of those who benefit will be under the age of 30, and more than half of them will be women. For many people, that might mean helping cover school costs, paying a bill, buying groceries or simply taking some pressure off. For those with more than $1,000 in work related expenses, they can still claim those as they usually would.

That includes things like charitable deductions, superannuation contributions and union and professional association fees. This reform is practical and reduces red tape. These bills are also about one of the biggest challenges facing Australians today: housing affordability.

Too many people feel locked out. Too many young Australians feel like homeownership has become something to aspire to rather than something realistically achievable. Too many families are worried about whether or not their children will have the same opportunities that they did.

Labor does not simply accept that as the reality. Housing is not an abstract economic debate. It is fundamental and should not become a privilege reserved only for those already ahead.

There was a time when homeownership was simply what happened if you worked hard and saved. It was within reach, and it was expected, and governments at every level understood their role in keeping it that way by building homes, investing in communities and making sure that supply kept up with demand. Over the course of decades, governments retreated from building.

At the same time, the rules around private construction became so layered and complex that getting a home built became an achievement in itself. Approvals slowed, land releases stalled, and the construction industry fell behind. The result was a system that made it harder and harder to build the homes Australians needed.

Then, in 1999, the Howard government introduced the capital gains tax discount, a decision that compounded every one of those supply failures. It was designed to drive investment into the share market. Instead, it made established residential property the most attractive, low-risk investment in the country, and investors flooded in.

Today, more than 80 per cent of investor lending flows into existing homes rather than new construction. A generation ago, buying a home cost around three times what the average Australian earned in a year. Today, that ratio is more like eight times.

That is the situation that Labor inherited, and that is what these bills begin to fix. Under these bills, future negative gearing arrangements will focus on new builds. And I want to be really clear about what that means.

Existing arrangements remain in place for current property owners. People who have made decisions under the current rules are protected. There is no retrospective change.

But, for future investment, incentives will be targeted towards increasing housing supply because, if negative gearing is going to be supported through the tax system, it should support the building of more homes. It should help increase supply. It should help Australians compete for more housing, not simply compete harder against one another for the same housing stock.

If we are serious about affordability, we have to be serious about building more homes. While this government is focused on fixing the problem, the opposition have made a different choice. They have said that they will fight these reforms.

They have been clear: if they win the next election, they will reverse them. Those opposite are not just opposing the solution; they are promising to recreate the problem. They would take taxpayer dollars and use them to subsidise property investors over first home buyers.

They would wind back the five per cent deposit program, saying to the 515 people in my community of Bonner that they don't get to own their own home. They would scrap Help to Buy. They would slash social and affordable housing programs.

They even want to scrap housing targets and the reform that sits underneath them. That is not an alternative; it is a step backwards, just like their appointment of Tony Abbott as president of the Liberal Party last week. They are not just determined to send their own party backwards; they want to send all of Australia backwards.

Despite what some headlines might suggest, many people in Bonner are telling me that they support reforms aimed at making the system fairer and helping young Australians get ahead. I heard from Lee in Carindale, who wrote to me saying: Thanks for your action on housing in the recent Budget! Well done!

Younger people I'm sure will be most appreciative. Tony, another local resident, said: Stick to your guns. This budget has taken the right path … I think those comments reflect something important.

People in my community understand that young Australians deserve a fair chance. They understand that, if we want the next generation to thrive, we cannot simply continue with settings that leave too many behind. They understand that reform is not always easy, but sometimes it is absolutely necessary.

These bills also reform capital gains tax by returning it closer to its original intent. Again, I want to speak plainly about what this means. There has been a lot of misinformation, and Australians deserve facts.

Firstly, we are not introducing a tax on inheritances or inherited assets. That claim is simply false. Secondly, this reform ensures Australians are taxed on the real gains they make, not inflation driven growth.

Under the reforms, the base cost of assets will be indexed. In simple terms, tax will better reflect actual profit. That is a sensible principle, and it is a fair principle.

Importantly, many Australians may pay the same amount of tax or, in some cases, even less depending on circumstances such as inflation, rates of return and how long assets have been held. These reforms also protect important concessions for small business, including capital gains tax concessions. In Bonner, we have more than 5,000 small businesses in our community, employing locals and supporting our local economy.

These local businesses will benefit from the practical support this budget delivers, including $3.5 billion in new business tax relief and making the $20,000 instant asset write-off permanent. We are also making the two-year loss carry back permanent, supporting startups, delivering tax relief for sole traders and reducing red tape through a new 'tell us once' approach.

Importantly, we are cutting regulatory costs across the economy by $10.2 billion and removing 497 nuisance tariffs to reduce compliance costs for business. This morning the Fair Work Commission handed down its annual wage ruling, and it is good news for working Australians. From 1 July, the minimum wage rises by 5.97 per cent, to $26.44 an hour, and award rates rise by 4.75 per cent.

Nearly three million Australians will see that reflected in their pay packet. Who are those three million Australians? They are disproportionately women.

More than half are casual employees. More than a third are low paid. They work in aged care, in child care, in retail, in hospitality.

In Bonner, we have more than 1,200 people working in aged care and over a thousand working in the childcare sector. This will be a pay rise for them. These are the people who show up, who work hard and who keep this country running.

For too long, their wages have not kept pace with the cost of living. This government went to the Fair Work Commission and argued for an above-inflation pay rise for the lowest paid workers in this country, something that those opposite have never done. That is what we do as the Labor Party: we fight for those who need it most.

And that runs through everything we are doing—a fairer tax system, more pathways into homeownership and wages that actually reflect the contribution working Australians make every single day. This is the government that we are—a government that cuts taxes for workers, that makes tax time simpler, that fights for first home buyers, that invests in new homes and that goes to the Fair Work Commission and argues for the lowest paid workers to get a fair go.

That is not about punishing success. It's not about politics. It's about something more important than that: it's about our core values and it's about making sure that in Australia, if you work hard, if you save and if you contribute, we want you to earn more and keep more of what you earn.