By Stephen Johnson, Nic White and Charlie Moore for Daily Mail Australia
Help for first home buyers
The Labor Party will introduce a ‘Help to Buy’ scheme in which the government would take a 40 per cent stake in up to 10,000 homes a year to help people earning less than $90,000 get on the property ladder.
Albanese will also create a $10 billion Australian Housing Future Fund to build 30,000 new social and affordable housing properties in its first five years.
Child care changes
One of the Labor Party’s most important policies is to increase childcare subsidies for all families earning less than $530,000.
“We can include universal child care in that proud tradition,” Mr. Albanese told his supporters.
Albanese would eliminate a cap that prevents families earning more than $189,390 from receiving more than $10,560 a year in subsidies.
A family making $189,390 that uses child care five days a week would receive $21,608 in subsidies, more than double the current allocation.
Lower-income families would also benefit from higher subsidies. For example, a family taking home $80,000 per year would receive an additional $2,389 per year for full-time care.
Labor will also launch a review to provide a 90 per cent universal childcare subsidy.
Tax cuts
Labor will implement stage three income tax cuts in 2024, creating a flat rate of 30 per cent between $45,000 and $200,000.
The measure primarily benefits those earning more than $120,000, who are now still taxed at 37 percent.
Labor abandoned its 2019 policy to ban negative gearing, a major tax bonus for property investors that economists say drives up house prices.
Albanese spoke of the Labor Party as the party of opportunity, using the language of personal improvement over class struggle in his speech.
“But no one was left behind: of course, we must always support aspirations and opportunities,” he said.
Education
Labor will provide 465,000 free TAFE places and an additional 20,000 university places under a $1.2 billion plan.
The free TAFE places will be for courses in industries with skills shortages, such as trade and construction, resources, digital and cyber security, new energy and advanced manufacturing.
Labor has no plans to reduce university fees after the Coalition raised the prices of humanities courses.
Access to GPs
Albanese has committed to building 50 first aid clinics across the country.
The clinics will treat non-life-threatening injuries, such as broken bones, minor burns, cuts and animal stings, and will be open daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
He also pledged to spend $750 million over four years to improve access to GPs, including outside of business hours.
Labor will increase government subsidies for medicines included in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme by reducing the maximum patient cost from $42.50 to $30 per prescription.
Defense and borders
Labor backs AUKUS alliance and gets nuclear-powered submarines to counter China’s rise.
Unions support returning vessels and offshore processing but would eliminate temporary protection visas. This would allow thousands of refugees already living in Australia to stay permanently.
The Coalition argued that such a move would encourage people smugglers to start sending boats here again.
Climate change
Unions have committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 with a reduction target of 43 per cent by 2030, more than the Coalition’s 26-28 per cent.
Together we can seize the opportunity for Australia to become a renewable energy superpower,” said Mr Albanese in his victory speech.
Labor will spend $20 billion to upgrade the electricity grid and improve transmission, deploy 85 solar banks and 400 community batteries and invest in 10,000 ‘new energy apprentices’ alongside a $10 million new energy skills programme.
Albanese said the plan would allow cheaper renewable sources to supply 82 percent of electricity by 2030.
The plan is projected to create 604,000 jobs and reduce average household energy prices by $275 a year by 2025 and $378 by 2035.
The new Labor government will also spend $3 billion on renewable energy manufacturing and the deployment of low-emission technologies, as well as removing taxes on electric cars to make them cheaper.
Changes in the care of older people
Albanese outlined plans to improve care for older people after a Royal Commission reported shocking incidents of neglect.
Labor sparked controversy by announcing it would require care homes to have a nurse 24 hours a day, seven days a week from July 2023, a year earlier than the Commission recommended.
The ALP will also submit a proposal to the Fair Work Commission to support a pay rise for aged care workers.
“Together we can solve the aged care crisis,” said Mr Albanese.
Anthony Albanese has promised to introduce a law forcing companies to reveal how much they pay men and women if he becomes prime minister.
Manufacturing
Labor will establish a $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund to fund major manufacturing projects across the country.
The fund will provide loans, guarantees and capital to support projects in resources, transportation, agriculture, medicine, energy and defense.
Labor said the policy would “guarantee good-paying jobs, boost regional development and invest in our national sovereign capacity, expanding and diversifying Australia’s economy”.
Trains, trams and ferries will be made in Australia rather than overseas and a fast rail line will be built between Sydney and Newcastle.
Corruption watchdog
Labor will establish a federal integrity commission that the Morrison government promised in 2019 and then failed to deliver.
The Coalition’s proposed model cannot conduct its own independent inquiries, public inquiries or investigate past scandals, but the Labor Party would be able to do all of these things.
Industrial relationships
The Labor Party will implement a series of industrial relations reforms to redefine informal work and give Australians more opportunities to secure permanent jobs.
In March 2021, the government defined casual work for the first time as a situation where a worker “does not have a firm commitment in advance to carry out continuous, indefinite work according to an agreed pattern of work”.
But the Labor Party will change this so that employment status is determined by workers’ shift patterns.
If an employee has regular shifts over a defined period of time, then they would be permanent and not casual, like a coal miner who has a fixed 12-month payroll.
Albanese will improve the rights of so-called self-employed workers, such as Uber and Deliveroo drivers.
Labor will expand the Fair Work Commission’s powers to include “employee-like” forms of work, meaning they would have to be paid a minimum wage.
The ALP will also introduce new laws to ensure that workers doing the same job receive the same pay whether they are employed directly or through labor hire companies.
And wage secrecy clauses in employment contracts designed to prevent workers from discussing their paychecks will be banned.