MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE

Ms CAMPBELL (Moreton) (15:55): It's pretty rich hearing from the member for Cook talking about workers and honesty. Having listened to the good history lesson that we heard from the member for Solomon, I think it's important to have a little bit of a history lesson for the member for Cook on the matter of working people, because he is part of a party that decided that a deliberate design feature of their policy would be to keep wages low.

He is part of a coalition that includes a party that decided, in my home state of Queensland, to dismantle the workplace health and safety laws of our state. He is part of a party that thought that same job, same pay wasn't worth their vote. So, when we talk about working people in this nation, you've got to have a good, hard look at yourself, mate.

Do you know what Australians really want? Australians want a tax cut. Mr Kennedy interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): Member for Cook!

I won't ask again. Ms CAMPBELL: Do you know what Australians really want? Australians want affordable health care.

Do you know what Australians really want? Australians want a place to call their own. They want a place to call home.

We hear all of this bluster, puffery and pantomime from those sitting opposite. Mr Kennedy interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER: If you can't stop your interjections, you should leave. Ms CAMPBELL: It is deliberately designed to obfuscate the truth, and the truth is this: this is an opposition who voted against tax cuts last time.

This Thursday, we will find out whether they will vote against tax cuts again. The truth is that this is an opposition who, when it comes to health care, tried to dismantle bulk-billing by introducing a co-payment. The truth is that this is an opposition who, when it comes to housing, not only did not have a housing minister for the majority of the time it was in government but failed to muster up a single social home in two terms.

When we talk about this MPI, there is certainly a guarantee, and the guarantee is this: that, if the coalition were in government, Australians would be worse off. I think it's worth taking a look back at tax and housing and what's happened through the history of this country. In 1999, we saw the coalition impose a 50 per cent discount on taxable capital gains.

What did this result in? It resulted in a reduction in investment in the share market, it resulted in insatiable investment in property and it distorted the housing market in a way that has seen people who want to get into their first home locked out. When you couple that with 40 years of not building enough supply and with not having a housing minister, what you find is a recipe for the death of the great Australian dream.

Not content with contributing to this problem, they now seek to block its solution. When a nurse—like the member for Bullwinkel, who is sitting right next to me—going to work and working shift work to look after our families, a teacher going to educate the next generation of young Australians or a chippy building the homes that we need to make sure we can get more people into housing is taxed at a higher rate than people holding assets, that is a problem, and it's a problem that this government believes we should do something about.

Deputy Speaker, do you know what is so disingenuous and dastardly about this MPI in particular? It is that the member for Goldstein knows that this taxation system is broken when it comes to housing, because he said: … it's time to be honest: the tax system is screwing over young Australians. Young people who want that great Australian dream of a house to live in, a door to open, a place to call their own and to plan their family in—young people, in my electorate, cannot live in the opposition's rhetoric.

Young people, who are facing cost-of-living pressures, cannot pay their bills with the opposition's bombast. And the only people who share their aspirations of homeownership— Ms Price interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): You'll get a turn in a minute, Member for Durack. Ms CAMPBELL: are sitting on this side of the chamber right now.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Now the member for Durack has the call.