QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Dr CHALMERS (Rankin—Treasurer) (14:21): I'd be very surprised if the Leader of the Opposition wants to go down this path, which I suspect is why nobody on the frontbench asked that question. Just like the Leader of the Opposition, the questions from the Liberal and National parties are becoming increasingly desperate and more than a little bit pathetic. Our changes in the budget that we announced less than two months ago are about making the housing market fairer for everyone.
They're about making sure that, for the first time in a quarter of a century, first home buyers—and, particularly, young Australians—get a fair go in a housing market that has locked them out for too long. We understand that those opposite—all three of the right-wing parties over there with their divisive, antihousing, antiworker agenda—would like to leave the housing market and the tax system exactly as it is.
They are entirely comfortable with this idea that, for a quarter of a century since Mr Howard and Mr Costello made a big policy mistake to distort the housing market and lock more young people out of the market—that is the status quo that they will go to any lengths to preserve. We have a different view about the housing market. No objective observer of the housing market in this country would say that it's working exactly as it should be, and it's especially not working for first home buyers.
Once you come to that realisation and acknowledge that truth, you've got two choices: (1) do nothing about it, which has been their approach for a decade; or (2) do something about this challenge to make it easier for first home buyers to get a toehold in a market that has been too difficult for them for too long. Mr Taylor: You're pulling up the ladder. Dr CHALMERS: The Leader of the Opposition has been interjecting once again about the ladder, and I'll say once again to the Leader of the Opposition that not everybody fails upwards up the ladder like the Leader of the Opposition does.
Not everybody starts their life at the top of the ladder. There's not much point in a ladder if the first few rungs are missing. That's the case when it comes to the housing market in this country.
We are making the housing market fairer for first home buyers. We are proud to be doing that. No amount of increasingly desperate, increasingly pathetic questions from those opposite will deter us.