QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Ms O'NEIL (Hotham—Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness and Minister for Cities) (14:28): I thank the fantastic member for Macnamara for his question, and I want to acknowledge the particular leadership role that he's played in this discussion, in his role as special envoy for social housing and homelessness. He understands, as I do, that housing is about so much more than bricks and mortar.

This is about security. It's about stability. It's about having the confidence to start a family and put down roots in a community.

For too many Australians right around our country, our broken housing system has pushed these things out of reach. Australians are working harder than ever. They're studying harder and they're saving harder, but a broken housing system will not reward their efforts.

We believe it is time for change. We want a fairer system. We want a fairer system for first home buyers, to put them on a level playing field with investors and to back them in with our five per cent deposit program.

We want a fairer system for workers, who need and deserve a pay rise, and we want a fairer system for taxpayers, who need and deserve the tax cut that our government is about to give them. Now, those opposite do not support any of those things, and I want Australians who are watching at home to know something: we see the broken system and we see the pain that this is causing you.

We are for change; these people are for the status quo. We stand up for opportunity; those opposite stand up for privilege. If Robert Menzies were alive today, he would be absolutely horrified with what he would see on the other side of the chamber.

He started a political party that was all about ordinary Australians having a stake in their own country. Yet in politics today it is Labor that is standing up for aspiration. It is Labor that is standing up for ordinary people, to have stability, certainty and control in their lives.

When it comes to aspiration, our party has a pretty simple belief: we want Australians to get ahead and we want them to do it in a home of their own. Our broken housing system is increasingly one where your chance of homeownership depends not on how hard you work but on the wealth you inherit from your parents. In our view, that is not Australia at its best, so we're making some hard decisions to change the system.

We're cutting taxes, we're increasing wages and we're helping more Australians get into the dream of homeownership. Speaker, that's good for the people that you represent in this parliament and it's good for the people that I represent. And, on the Labor side of politics, we believe what's good for Australians is what's good for our country.