Cameron Caldwell (Fadden, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Housing) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges that the Government has made Australia's housing crisis worse than ever by:

(a) expanding the 5 per cent deposit scheme from a sensible and targeted approach, to an uncapped and non-means-tested free for all which has supercharged house prices by 3.6 per cent in just one quarter, and exposed first home buyers including young Australians to larger mortgages;

(b) creating the failing Housing Australia Future Fund which has $11.4 billion within it but has built only 895 houses in 2.5 years of operation; and

(c) proposing to fiddle with the capital gains tax and negative gearing, which is dressed up as an equity measure but will not actually result in the construction of new dwellings;

(2) notes that the Government is overseeing a historic collapse of housing construction, with dwelling completions are now running at around 170,000 each year, whereas 200,000 dwellings were completed annually under the previous Government, while the population has grown by more than 1.6 million since the Government came to power; and

(3) further notes that the Government is already running more than 80,000 dwellings short of the National Housing Accord target of 1.2 million homes by mid-2029, and modelling by the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council says the Government will not reach its own target, falling more than 60,000 dwellings short.

As we start this sitting week, Australians are suffering a fuel crisis, a cost-of-living crisis and a housing crisis. The economy is weak, fuel supplies aren't guaranteed and Australians are hurting. The great Australian dream is becoming a nightmare under this Labor government. It's a nightmare for young Australians, it's a nightmare for renters, it's a nightmare for homeowners and it's a nightmare for seniors. If you've got a home, you're worried about whether you'll be able to keep it, and, if you haven't, you worry that you never will.

Last week, the RBA lifted the official cash rate to 4.1 per cent, on the back of raging inflation, meaning that mortgage holders have been dealt yet another blow. The average mortgage holder is paying $27,000 a year in interest more than what it was under the coalition government. Renters are not escaping either, with rents up 22 per cent in the same time. These numbers underpin the reason why standards have fallen and Australians are going backwards.

There are two major factors in determining whether housing in this country is successful and achievable, and that is the balance of supply and demand. At the Joint Standing Committee on Migration hearing on Friday 13 March, the Department of Home Affairs admitted it has never modelled the impact of the Albanese government's migration numbers on housing and infrastructure. Infrastructure Australia, during the same hearing, in their evidence described the recent surge as 'mega-population-growth'.

Treasury has said that net overseas migration is expected to moderate to, say, 260,000 in 2025-26. But, in recent years, the forecasts have not been close to reality. In the year 2022-23, they forecast 235,000, and what did we get? We got 538,000. In 2023-24, 235,000 was the forecast, while the actual was 429,000. What's interesting about these numbers is that the current minister for housing was the Minister for Home Affairs at the time. The irony that she is now the minister whose job it is to fix the housing crisis is not lost on anyone. We remember that she was hopeless in Home Affairs, and now we've seen she's hopeless with homes.

The minister talks about there being a crisis that's been building for 40 years, but the reality is that it's only been the last four under this Labor government. In short, immigration has been way too high, and it's been putting unsustainable pressure on the housing sector. There must be an alignment of immigration and housing, or this crisis will only deepen.

It doesn't matter what the question is, but the answer is never higher taxes. But, of course, in true Labor fashion, when they run out of actual ideas, they reach for the taxation drawer. Labor now wants to fiddle with capital gains tax and negative gearing, changes that are dressed up as fairness, but they won't lead to more homes being built. The Property Council said last month that there is a long-held misunderstanding that changing the capital gains tax discount would help housing affordability, 'even though it will not boost supply'. The Property Council are not new to analysing this issue, and in September 2017, when Labor was in opposition, they said this:

We have also consistently put the view that the Opposition's plan to cut the discount from 50 per cent to 25 per cent would damage the industry, the economy and the security of the livelihoods of many in the industry who rely on construction.

There is a big difference between a tap the brakes approach to CGT and slamming on the handbrake.

That is the key point: if you tax housing and investment more, you won't get more housing. Higher taxes will lead to fewer houses. The government's dream of 1.2 million homes is so far from reality. It is absolutely unachievable; they are not getting there. We must restore homeownership as the centrepiece of the Australian dream, and it's only the coalition who will protect Australians' way of life and restore their standard of living.

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