Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) | Hansard source

The only thing more pathetic than the point of order was to hear the shadow Treasurer chirping away without a question over there. He can't get a question, but he's prepared to chirp away when the member for Griffith asks his question.

The reason why building more homes, building more supply, and our $32 billion investment are so important is the Greens political party had an opportunity in the Senate last week to vote for tax changes which would incentivise more homes in our communities—tens of thousands of homes. And the point that I'm making is that if the member for Griffith wants to use the tax system to make the housing sector fairer for young people, homeless people and renters then he would have voted that way in the Senate—or his colleagues would have voted that way in the Senate. Our priority, when it comes to tax reform and housing, is to incentivise more rental properties, because, for as long as there aren't enough homes in our communities, rents will be too high.

The other important point about rents is that we have now provided, in two consecutive budgets, two increases to Commonwealth rent assistance, and rents are still too high and they're growing too fast. In the most recent monthly indicator, the annual rental growth was 7.4 per cent. It would have been 9.3 per cent without our changes to Commonwealth rent assistance. We acknowledge that rents are too high. We acknowledge that more homes need to be built. We're providing that Commonwealth rent assistance increase at the same time that we're trying to build more homes.

Last week in the Senate, the Greens voted for fewer homes, higher rents and more homelessness. If they really cared about housing, they would vote with Labor rather than vote with the conservatives.

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