Tom Venning (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Supply and demand. Have you ever heard of it? When the demand of a good increases and the supply is not matched, the outcome is higher prices. And it's the same for supply. If you increase supply, the prices go down. All this scheme achieves is an increase in house prices. It allows first home buyers to take one step towards homeownership, while homeownership takes two steps away from them. There will always be winners from this scheme, but it won't be first home buyers; it'll be investors, it'll be the banks and it'll be older Australians who already own their own property. I find it extraordinary that this government has put together a policy for first home buyers that is benefiting everyone except first home buyers. It is simply astonishing.

Encouraging first home buyers to borrow 95 per cent of the home value is not a cause for celebration. It's a fundamental failure. It is a failure from all levels of government, current and former, that we've got to this situation where young Australians must plunge themselves into a lifetime of debt just to own a place of their own. This Labor government talks a massive game on housing, but it has nothing to show for it. Instead of helping Australians into homes, it has buried the housing sector under 5,000 new regulations and delivered a $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund boondoggle that's fuelling the housing crisis by outbidding Australians for their own homes.

The only way to address a housing shortage is to create supply. But since this government hasn't yet grappled with the concept of supply-side economics, I'd like to demonstrate. I'd like to acknowledge my high school economics teacher, Mr McGuire. He would say, 'Increase right, increase right, increase right.' When you increase supply to the right, prices go down. When you increase demand to the right, prices go up. Labor's first home flop is a nightmare that's leaving younger Australians paying larger loans for longer. It's time for this government to do its economic homework and get on with the job of restoring the dream of homeownership.

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