QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Ms O'NEIL (Hotham—Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness and Minister for Cities) (14:14): I thank the member for Bean for his question and I want to acknowledge the fantastic advocacy that he undertakes in this parliament for his community. There is a really important bill before our parliament. This is a bill that is going to deliver a tax cut for every single working Australian and a bill that will help level the playing field for the first time for Australia's first home buyers.
These are urgent and important changes for our country to make. If we just step back from the political debate that we're all engaged in, at a time when homeownership rates are falling through the floor for Australia's young people, our country simply cannot keep tilting the playing field away from first home buyers. That's exactly what our tax reforms are seeking to change.
When members vote on this legislation on Thursday, they're going to face a pretty simple choice: who are they here to fight for? Is it working Australians and aspiring homeowners, or is it the people who already have the system stacked in their favour? For me and for the members behind me, this is not a complicated question.
We are on the side of first home buyers and we are on the side of working Australians who are trying to get ahead. Now, I'm asked about alternatives. The Liberals and the Nationals have already made their choice.
They did it before they even bothered to read the legislation. They are going to come into the parliament tomorrow and they are going to vote against a tax cut for every single working Australian. And not just that—they're going to come into this parliament and vote against every single aspiring first home buyer in our country.
That comes on top of the years that they have spent attacking everything that our government is doing to help young people get into the market. I shake my head and wonder what has happened to the party of Robert Menzies. This is a party that once said that it stood up for first homeownership.
Today, they are a pathetic shadow of what they once were. I want to just remind you— Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER: Order. The interjections coming to this minister are unacceptable.
I'm not going to tolerate it. And the yelling while she's on her feet is not on. So everyone has a fair warning.
I just want to hear what the minister is saying for the remainder of this answer. Ms O'NEIL: I was just taking the parliament through where those opposite have got themselves in terms of first home buyers. I want to give you the list.
They want to scrap Help to Buy, a program that does nothing more than help 10,000 first home owners get into the market every year. They've told us that they want to wind back the five per cent deposit program, a program that has helped 260,000 Australians get into a home of their own. Now they're saying that, if they win the next election, they're going to come into this parliament and they're going to choose to use taxpayer dollars to subsidise investors over first home buyers at every single auction across this country.
Those opposite are competing on outrage. We are focused on opportunity. They're the only ones left defending a housing system that isn't working.
We're getting on with the job of making it better.