QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:28): I thank the member for her question; I really do. We have legislation which passed the House of Representatives—the reform that we think is appropriate. We now will have it carried by the Senate on Thursday, and, yes, we have secured a majority in the Senate because those opposite—the three right-wing parties—didn't take Dennis Shanahan's advice and actually engage in debate.
What they chose to do was what they consistently do, which is to just say no before they've seen any detail, before they've seen the legislation. And now they've promised to repeal it. Well, there is a very big difference, of course, between us and those opposite.
We're building 55,000 social and affordable homes over five years through the HAFF. They built 373 over the decade they were in office. We've helped 260,000 Australians into their first home with five per cent deposits.
They want to gut the scheme and said that it would only benefit the children of billionaires. Remember that? We're throwing everything at housing supply.
The SPEAKER: The Prime Minister will pause. The member for Lindsay asked a very political question that contained a lot of matter in it, but I'll give her a fair go. Mrs McIntosh: On relevance—I asked the Prime Minister an important question for Australians, particularly those trying to get ahead.
Will he rule out agreeing with the Greens to remove grandfathering— The SPEAKER: Resume your seat. The Prime Minister was asked about the legislation that has been ushered through the other place and what deals have been done about a particular topic, but he's being directly relevant. When you've got a question framed like that, there's going to be some political commentary because it was a political question, which is fine.
But the Prime Minister is being directly relevant. Mr ALBANESE: As for negative gearing, what we support is not the same position as the Greens political party, because, unlike this Leader of the Opposition, who allows the One Nation tail to wag the Liberal and National Party dog, what we do is we stand up for our values. Our values are to make sure make sure that grandfathering is there in negative gearing and in the changes that we've made.
We've made sure as well that negative gearing can still occur but what they'll be doing is investing in new homes, not existing ones. So the examples that I just used, the examples that we're seeing right around the country on Saturdays, are that, for the first time in a long while, young Australians are getting a fair crack, because they're not competing against investors who have taxpayers supporting their bids.
It has changed the whole competition there and is enabling first home buying Australians to have a fair crack. What they want is to reinstate the tax breaks for property investors across the board—that is what they've said—and take away the gains which are made. We have a $47 billion Homes for Australia plan.
They didn't even bother to have a housing minister most of the time they were in office.