Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to also speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Reducing Pressure on Housing Affordability Measures No 1) Bill 2017. As other speakers have outlined and as many of the speakers on this side of the House have mentioned, Labor will be opposing this bill. We know that the dream of owning your own home is pretty much completely out of reach for too many Australians. Working- and middle-class families are being priced out of the housing market. The evidence shows this very clearly. Ownership rates for young people aged between 25 and 34 have tumbled in recent years from 60 per cent to 48 per cent. Just as disturbing is the fact that young people are being forced to take on levels of debt unimaginable just a few decades ago.

You'd be forgiven for finding our opposition to this bill surprising, given the name of the bill—the so-called measures to reduce pressure on housing affordability. That name would lead you to believe that the government had recognised the problem and was taking the appropriate action. Why shouldn't we support that? But the devil is in the detail. While this bill purports to address the issue of housing affordability, it does nothing more than pay lip service to one of the greatest issues and challenges facing the Australian economy. We had to wait several months to see this legislation and get across the detail. What we got was nothing more than a collection of half-baked ideas and thought bubbles. Make no mistake: the measures contained in this bill are ineffective and will solve nothing. We were told that the government was going to rescue first home buyers—they were going to come in and be rescuing superheroes. The member for Deakin, Super Sukkar, was going to fly in—he's here today—

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