Prime Minister Anthony Albanese issues a defence of CGT changes from the budget and Australia's multicultural society.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended changes to capital gains tax that were part of the budget, while also spruiking multiculturalism during a wide-ranging interview on 7.30. auction clearance rates were their lowest since April 2020 in Sydney and lowest since during 2021's COVID-19 lockdowns in Melbourne"Therefore we had to do something about it.
" That change has caused some consternation among investors and home-owners concerned their property values could decrease. Mr Albanese rebuffed those suggestions though, citing Treasury estimates from before the changes.
"The Treasury estimates are that house prices will continue to increase, but they'll increase by a lesser amount than they would have otherwise with these changes," he said. Asked if he was concerned about people losing value on their homes, the prime minister said he thought the auction results were encouraging for homebuyers.
"What is important is that last Saturday when people went to buy their own home, if it was an existing property, they weren't competing against investors who knew that if they could bid an extra $20,000 or $50,000," he said. "People can still negatively gear new builds of course, and that's about boosting supply. "We know there's been a 400 per cent increase in house prices since 1999, more than double the increase in wages.
And that's why we couldn't continue to sit back and not pursue this reform.
" Challenged that this was him effectively saying that "home-owners should just be prepared to take a hit", the PM denied the charge. "We've seen home ownership rates drop for younger Australians," he said.
"I don't want to live in a society that's defined by intergenerational inequity, by people from my generation having access to buying their own home and having the security that comes from a roof over your head, to people who are the younger generations simply giving up on buying their own home. "With the cost of living a concern for many Australians, there has been a shift for voters from the major parties to One Nation.
Pauline Hanson's party recently topped opinion polls before a slip after her National Press Club address. And on Monday, Shadow Minister for Industry Andrew Hastie called the term "politically loaded".
"It's who we are as Australians," he told 7.30. "We are a modern country that are multicultural in our nature. "That means we have respect for each other. It means we are loyal to Australia — and we are made up with the exceptions of First Nations people — migrants or descendants of migrants in some way, either directly or going back generations as well.
"One of the great things about our nation is that I think we can be a microcosm for the world at our best. ""Pauline Hanson has a long political career but we have seen the rise of populist right-wing parties throughout the Western world. That reflects a range of changes, a range of frustrations," he said.
"What we need to do as a government and we are doing is address firstly and primarily cost of living pressures that are on people. "
Please follow us on Google to support usAnthony Albanese 7.30 Sarah Ferguson Pauline Hanson Multiculturalism Angus Taylor Monoculture Andrew Hastie
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