Politics LIVE updates: Anthony Albanese unveils stage 3 tax changes; Australian of the Year to be announced

The CFMEU has repeated its calls for a mega-profits tax to raise money for affordable housing, saying it would complement relief provided by the changes to stage 3 tax cuts.

Zach Smith, national secretary of the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees’ Union, said the overhaul announced by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday included “sensible changes that give greater relief to low- and middle-income workers, while still ensuring everyone gets a tax cut.”

CFMEU national secretary Zach Smith has welcomed Labor’s changes to the stage 3 tax cuts.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“Every worker will tell you we’re living in vastly different times to six years ago when the Coalition announced this package,” he said.

But he said the government still needed money “to fund the kind of Australia we all want” without taxing ordinary people, reviving the union’s push for a levy on major corporations as a way to finance affordable housing.”

A mega-profits tax on just 0.3 per cent of companies will raise the $511 billion we desperately need to build 750,000 homes by 2021,” he said.

The Albanese government last year secured crossbench support to create the Housing Australia Future Fund, an investment vehicle to spur the construction of tens of thousands of homes.