PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Mr HOLZBERGER (Forde) (10:48): I rise to speak against this motion today. In doing so, I'd just like to home in on one of the key words in this motion, which is 'aspiration'. As much as I do try to see common ground across the parliament, I feel as if there really is a misunderstanding there about what aspiration means.
I don't know how members of the three right-wing parties are out there talking to the community and talking to mums and dads who have basically given up on the aspiration of their kids ever owning their own home. I don't know how, just like we do, they are talking to young people who have basically given up on the aspiration of ever owning their own home. I don't know how it is that they continue to support a system which has effectively broken the spirit of the Australian people.
It has effectively killed the Australian dream of ever owning your own home. I don't know how it is that, when they confront a mum and a dad or young people who have given up on the aspiration of owning their own home, that they can just throw their hands up in the air and say, 'It's too hard to change.' Well, I can assure you that the approach of this government is real change.
Since the Albanese Labor government were elected in 2022, we have been working through real and substantial change—and so it is here that we're not going to just throw our hands up in the air and say, 'I wish that we could do something about this, but we're only the government.' The tax policy in this budget has really done three things. It has levelled the playing field for first home buyers, it has given more tax cuts to Australian workers and it has also provided some important and innovative policies to help Australian small business.
I've said on a number of occasions that, since being an observer or a participant in politics, in reference to the decision to triple the Medicare rebate for people seeing a bulk-billing doctor, that I've never seen a policy have such an immediate and positive impact as that decision to triple the rebate for bulk-billing. One night in November last year, we basically fixed the bulk-billing system, though there's still a lot of work to do.
One night in November last year, the number of bulk-billing clinics in the electorate of Forde, which I represented, doubled overnight. One policy! I've never seen a policy as effective as that one, but I think we might have a bit of competition.
This policy has also had immediate and positive impacts, from reports across the country—reports gained from talking to constituents. We now see auctions where first home buyers are again buying homes. We've now have sales where it is first home buyers who are able to compete again.
They aren't competing against investors who are basically subsidising their bids with taxpayer money in their pocket. I think that the history of this government will show at least two policies—I'm not sure which one is going to be the most impactful yet—that have had immediate and positive impacts. So it is with this policy to assist first home buyers.
Fundamentally, this government is focused on fixing up the problems that we have been left with after 30 years of mainly coalition rule. Twenty years ago, when the current tax arrangements policy was introduced by John Howard 20, the multiple of income-to-house-price was somewhere around one to four. Today it's one to eight.
It is even as high as one to 10. That is why people have given up on buying a home, because wages have not kept up with house prices. This policy attempts to repurpose the tax system to, I guess, incentivise or encourage the family home to be just that: a family home and not an investment vehicle.
On the other hand we are also focused on the other part of the equation, which is what workers earn and what they keep. That's why we now see the minimum-wage worker earning $12,000 more than when we came into government. That's why we have increased our— (time expired)