Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this important motion moved by the Member for Wright. Last week, the AustralianFinancial Review reported that, at the current rate, every state in this country will fail to meet its housing target, with my state of New South Wales amongst the furthest behind. This comes as median house prices hit record highs across every major city. In Sydney, the median price has reached $1.7 million—19 times the median full-time salary. In 2003, John Howard famously said that he didn't have people stopping him in the street to complain that house prices had gone up—well, I do. It's clear we've reached a tipping point with fewer and fewer young Australians believing homeownership is within their reach.

As the member for Wright highlights, enabling pathways into trades and apprenticeships is part of the solution. While I agree that the skills shortage is a major barrier to new construction, the problem runs much deeper than the recent decline in apprenticeship commencements. According to Jobs and Skills Australia, our construction sector is in a persistent shortage. The Master Builders association estimates that Australia will need half a million additional construction workers by 2029. If we assume a similar growth in apprenticeship completions over the next five years, we will barely make 20 per cent of this target.

The industry already relies on migrant workers, and one in four were born overseas. So, if we're serious about addressing our shortage, we must lift skilled migration and do so urgently. That starts with a designated construction skills visa, like those of the UK, New Zealand and Canada—countries facing similar housing affordability issues. Instead, construction workers seeking to come here face delays of up to 18 months and high application costs. The government had a chance to act last year, but, inexplicably, chose to vote against my amendment to include trades workers for the specialist skilled visa pathway.

The government must also deliver on its promise to tackle occupational licensing barriers between states and from approved overseas jurisdictions. I recently spoke to a UK citizen who is a fully qualified electrician but has now been forced to retrain because his UK qualifications weren't fully accepted here. The government's national licensing for electrical trades is a good start but still won't help my constituent fast enough.

Even if we fix migration and training, it will take far more than skills to solve this crisis. Firstly, the crossbench has long called for the government to restructure state incentives to help clear the capacity and bureaucratic bottlenecks holding back housing supply. This approach is backed by the sector itself—the people navigating the red tape every day.

Secondly, we need to prioritise infrastructure projects that enable housing. If the Commonwealth invests heavily in transport, that investment should be tied to appropriate zoning and development around new transport corridors. In addition, we need to make sure that, when we are investing in infrastructure, that is doing things like enabling the sewerage and other treatments that are needed for housing.

Thirdly, we need to stop demand-side interventions like the five per cent deposit scheme that the government has recently brought into being, which has absolutely no friends among people who know how house prices are driven—economists and housing experts. We know these don't work. We know that these have made things worse for young home buyers. But still we are seeing a government introducing pieces of legislation that just make it harder for young Australians to buy their own homes, rather than easier.

Fourthly, the government must deal with the CFMEU once and for all, appointing a genuine industry regulator with teeth. Despite the appointment of an administrator, which I supported, we still see appalling conduct from self-interested actors undermining trust in this critical sector and holding back the house-building and other building that we need in this country.

Finally, we need to improve the allocation of existing housing. Too many young families are squeezed into two-bedroom apartments while empty-nesters remain in large, mostly unused, homes. The key reform here is a transition from stamp duty to land tax, unlocking mobility and better using our existing housing stock. It is fairer, it is the appropriate thing to do, and the federal government needs to work with the states to enable this to happen.

Our generation of parliamentarians will be judged on whether we fix housing affordability, and it is time to pull all the levers that we possibly can. Too often, both of the major parties pull one lever or another that they think is politically convenient for their side of politics, rather than deal with the overarching needs across the whole of the economy.

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