Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

You really have to have some front to be a Labor MP and come into this chamber and talk about interest rates, because if you are a Labor MP you represent a party in this chamber that long ago abandoned any sense of economic responsibility in favour of a rabid opportunism. For 10 years this directionless opposition have done everything possible to hold Australia back. Chained down by their outdated ideology and their master-servant relationship with the union movement, the ALP have opposed the government every time we have taken a tough decision that benefits the Australian people.

Most recently, we have seen their sleazy attacks on the Work Choices legislation—sensible measures that are required to provide a bit more flexibility within our labour market. The ALP opposed welfare reform. They opposed tax reform. They even opposed tax relief for every single Australian as part of last year’s budget. And yet we have the member for Prospect come in here with his shabby little matter of public importance which attacks the government for failure to take responsibility. I can tell him that nothing could be further from the truth. This government is more than happy to take responsibility for the Australian economy, an economy that is the standout of all developed economies, an economy that is the envy of our OECD partners and continues to deliver increases to our standard of living.

In 13 years of Labor government housing interest rates averaged 12.75 per cent. In 10 years of coalition government they have averaged 7.15 per cent. Under Labor interest rates peaked at 17 per cent for housing, 21 per cent for small business and 23 per cent for farmers. The crippling effect of those 17 per cent mortgage interest rates plus a huge government debt will forever be Labor’s legacy from the Hawke-Keating years. Labor occasionally claim that during their time in government they were happy to embrace economic reforms—reforms which, at the time, the then opposition supported because they were in Australia’s interests. This claim is partly true. The Hawke-Keating government did take some admirable steps and do some admirable reforms during this period. Yet this history is an even more damning indictment of today’s opposition. Because of weak leadership and a lack of any policy direction they have descended into a predictable opportunism that will never allow them to take any hard decisions that benefit the Australian people. The Australian Labor Party spurn Australia’s national interests in favour of unprincipled political point-scoring.

I see that this week the current fashion for Labor MPs is to cry crocodile tears about housing affordability. But, of course, we all know that the reason for the crisis in housing affordability is state Labor government planning policies, particularly land release policies. State Labor governments have failed to grasp the basic law of supply and demand. If you are not going to release land then obviously that is going to drive up its price. Yet this basic economic concept seems totally beyond the wit of our state Labor governments. The latte set that run these outfits look down on the great Australian dream of the block of land and a house in the suburbs. They think they have better ways for us to live, and they are using their planning policies to impose their inner-city vision. They derogatorily refer to ‘McMansions’, as if aspiring to own a home on a decent sized block of land was somehow wrong. The housing affordability crisis that the ALP have suddenly discovered is actually a deliberately created land shortage. Rather than bleat about interest rates, the ALP members should talk to their state counterparts and request that they do something about it.

The member for Prospect attempted to argue that the huge increases in the cost of housing related back to the increases in construction costs. I doubt that he would actually believe that, because in the past 10 years construction costs have increased by about 40 per cent whereas housing prices have increased by substantially more than that. On top of the land release policies of the state governments, what about the outrageous tax regimes that they are currently running in the Labor states? In my home state of Western Australia the Carpenter government is gorging itself on taxes generated by the property boom. It jacked up stamp duty for three budgets in a row to make it one of the highest levels in Australia. In other parts of the country it is the same story, yet speaker after speaker got up here and tried to find other reasons for this problem of housing affordability. I say to all the Labor members of parliament that they need to talk to their state Labor counterparts and beg them to put some more land on the market. If we are going to address this problem we at least need to be honest about it. We at least need to identify what the true causes are and then ask the state Labor governments to address them.

The Howard government has worked hard to increase prosperity of Australian families in the 10 years that we have been in office. In my electorate of Stirling unemployment continues to fall. The local unemployment rate now stands at 5½ per cent, which is a decrease over the past 10 years of about four per cent. When the Labor government left office in March 1996, Stirling’s unemployment rate was almost 10 per cent. These are the results of economically responsible policies. Sadly, not all Australian governments have been so responsible. At a state level, as the retiring Governor of the Reserve Bank pointed out, state deficits and state borrowings are now placing upward pressure on interest rates. He said:

“I have been lucky—for most of my time, fiscal policy has consisted of small surpluses.

“So the movement in the government account has not been big enough to be important in the consideration of monetary policy.

“It might become an issue because the states are now part of the equation.”

State fiscal balances and cash balances are forecast to move into deficit in the next financial year. Collectively, the states and territories are forecasting deficits of almost $5 billion, compared to a surplus—

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