QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator WHITEAKER (Western Australia) (15:16): Well, having listened to that contribution, it's no wonder that voters are running away from the coalition in droves. Today's question time was yet another example of the Liberal Party and the National Party either forgetting that they are the parties who took a plan to the last election for higher taxes or hoping that the Australian people will forget that they're the parties who took a position to the last election for higher taxes.

But I don't think the Australian people will forget. I don't think the Australian people have forgotten what the opposition put to them at the last election. It was the Liberal Party and the National Party who said to working Australians 'we will tax you more if we win government', and voters gave them the answer to what they thought about that proposition; they rejected it wholly.

And they continue to reject it. Our tax changes are actually pretty simple. They're about delivering a fair go—a fair go for Australian workers, a fair go for young Australians, a fair go for people who dream of owning their first home, They aren't thinking about whether they can invest in their fifth or their sixth or their seventh.

They just want to get their foot in the door of a home that they can call their own and to have the safety and the security that that brings. That's what our government is delivering in these tax changes. We want young Australians to share in that dream, to live that dream, of buying their own home.

That is a commitment that our government has made since coming to government in 2022, and these tax changes—our reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax—are the next logical step in doing that. They're the next logical step from five per cent home deposits and from investing in the homes that we need through the Housing Australia Future Fund. This is the next step in helping Australians achieve that dream.

Labor decided that we were not going to stand by and allow this generational crisis that we are seeing in the housing market continue. We were not going to stand by and let homeownership continue to get further and further out of reach for young Australians. We have drawn a line in the sand and have said that is unacceptable.

Those opposite want to scaremonger. They want to run a One-Nation-like fear campaign. But I think Australians will see through it.

Certainly the young people that I talk to absolutely see through it. They see through it because they understand that it is the richest in our country who benefit from capital gains tax and negative gearing arrangements. Eighty-three per cent of capital gains tax discounts go to the wealthiest Australians.

Eighty-three per cent goes to the wealthiest 10 per cent in our country. More than half of capital gains tax benefits go to the top one per cent of wealth in this country, and, on negative gearing, it's 37 per cent that goes to the top one per cent. Those are the people that the coalition and their friends in One Nation are standing up for in this debate.

It is not working Australians. It is not young Australians. They are on the side of the wealthiest Australians, but Labor is committed to getting young people into their own home.