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

Ms TEMPLEMAN (Macquarie) (10:33): If you think about the times in your life that can be milestones for leaping into homeownership, it's getting a full-time job, partnering, starting a family. It's just not possible for the same decisions to be made by today's younger people as it was for my generation. Saving for a deposit takes longer, and we've seen that the price rises in housing mean that, in spite of hard work and saving, homeownership remains out of reach for so many.

The data shows us that the likelihood of owning your own home in your 20s or 30s has fallen for each successive generation, and we on this side of the parliament don't believe that that is good enough. The most recent data shows that just 55 per cent of millennials were homeowners compared with 62 per cent of gen X at the same age in 2006 and 66 per cent of boomers at the same age in 1991.

The trajectory of renters is rising, and through the 2030s and 2050s that will continue unless something changes. Australia is moving from the norm of most people owning their own home by the time they retire to one where many will still have a mortgage or not have bought a home ever by that stage of life. That's the scale of the problem that we have in Australia.

It's the problem we've been tackling ever since we came to government, after a decade of no action by those opposite. We've recognised that in the first instance we needed to get supply happening. That meant training workers, and I'm so pleased to see the figures today showing that more than 25,000 Australians have already started an apprenticeship in housing construction in just 10 months, thanks to the Albanese Labor government's $10,000 Key Apprenticeship Program, which provides $10,000 in incentives to new tradies.

That program is helping to build a pipeline of skilled tradies in the critically important housing construction sector, ensuring that there are more Australians building more homes in communities across the country, including mine. It's also tackling critical skills shortages that we were left with after the former coalition government left office with shortages at a 50-year high.

We've also helped first home buyers with five per cent deposits and Help to Buy, and that has helped more than 1,350 people in Macquarie move from being a renter into their own home. But what we've done so far is not enough, and I know my community expects me to keep finding solutions for the problems that we face. One of our stated aims in the budget we just brought down was to make it easier for you to buy your first home, and that's what this bill is: a recognition that, as a government, we will continue to do what's best to provide opportunities for secure housing for people.

Secure housing is something I was able to do as a matter of course in my 20s, and I think younger generations deserve to be able to make the same choices. We're reforming negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions so that we level the playing field for first home buyers but grandfathering arrangements for some of the measures, to respect decisions that current investors have made.

If you've already negatively geared or own an investment property, you can continue to do so. If investors still want to use negative gearing on additional property in the future, they can do so on new builds, so that their investment goes towards creating more housing supply—more homes for more people. We're replacing the 50 per cent discount with cost-base indexation for gains accrued after 1 July, with a 30 per cent minimum tax.

These changes fix the tax treatment of capital gains so that the system operates as originally intended and helps direct investment to where it's most productive. These changes mean that, in the future, investors aren't taxed on inflationary gains, only their real gains. This is about returning the capital gains tax discount to its original purpose and removing that big distortion introduced by Howard and Costello in 1999—interestingly, the point at which housing took off and housing prices rose dramatically, much faster than people's incomes rose.

That was the root of the problem. That distortion, which coincided with house prices increasing much faster than wages, was because the playing field was changed. It was unlevelled, and our job is to level it back.

Property investors who buy new builds will be able to choose either the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount or indexation and the minimum tax when they sell the property. We're applying these changes to capital gains arrangements to all assets to ensure we're not introducing new distortions into the system. This is about reducing distortions, encouraging people to invest in the best possible place for them, and that is not just investing in the housing market through old houses but by building new ones.

If the opposition really cared about this issue, we would have seen it when they were in government, and, clearly, we didn't. But what I've heard in their speeches is very disturbing. They seem to pretend that there is no problem.

But listen to the abject despair you hear from people in their 20s, 30s and even 40s, who are saying they do not feel they will ever have the chance to own their own home in spite of holding down good, full-time jobs and having saved. If they haven't heard that message then they are just not listening to young people. What's interesting is that I don't hear it just from young people.

I hear it from their mums and dads. I hear it from their grandparents. That is our objective: to address a really fundamental issue and, over time, make it much easier for people to buy their own home.

There's been some comment about the data showing the numbers of people in various electorates who negative gear. I want to give a shout-out to people who have looked at the situation and said that, on balance, what we're doing is the right way ahead. There's Michelle and Andrew, who say: 'We don't have children ourselves, but we worry about all young people struggling to afford life, given the housing crisis, amongst other things.

We'd like to say an enormous thankyou for the fantastic changes the Albanese government has made to ending the unfairness of capital gains tax discounts and negative gearing that favours investors over first home buyers.' Amanda wrote to me that it's unfair to see our children unable to buy a house and watch the wealthy getting wealthier. She said: 'The government's doing the right thing.

I'll forever blame John Howard for the mess he made of real estate in Australia.' And Kyle says: 'I'm writing to commend the government's steps in the federal budget to address longstanding distortions in the housing market. These policies have contributed to housing affordability challenges by disproportionately favouring speculative investment over access to secure housing.' This is the playing field that we are levelling.

If the opposition votes against this bill, that's what they're voting against: allowing more young people to get into housing at a reasonable age so that they have a chance of having it paid off by retirement. They're also voting against a tax cut for every working Australian, because the other key feature of this bill is its tax cut. From this next financial year, there's the new instant tax deduction of up to $1,000 every year, which will simplify work related expense deductions, delivering 6.2 million workers an average benefit of an extra $205 in that year.

And I should point out that if you want to claim charitable donations, union and professional association membership fees, or other deductions they can still be claimed on top of the instant tax deduction. That's about making things simpler and fairer. The following year we're introducing the Working Australians Tax Offset, the WATO, providing another ongoing annual tax cut for more than 13 million Australian workers.

This measure comes in from 1 July next year and it will be paid automatically in workers' tax returns. The tax cut is on top of the three tax cuts that the government has already legislated. These flow through every tax bracket, meaning that every taxpayer receives these tax cuts.

The measure recognises that for most Australians, particularly young people, income comes from work, and the tax system should reflect that. It's deliberately designed to support younger Australians and millennials, with gen Z expected to make up about two-thirds of the beneficiaries, and it is a really practical way to support that generation. This tax package is, across the board, pro-aspiration, pro-worker and pro-investment, and it means we are building a better, fairer, simpler tax system.