Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Sovereign Capability) Share this | Hansard source

():  There is a false promise being peddled to the young people of this country—a cruel illusion that says a five per cent deposit is a doorway to a more secure future, whereas it's actually a trapdoor. This Labor government doesn't just miss the mark on housing; they've engineered a mirage and then have had the audacity to call it a blueprint. A blueprint is supposed to be a promise for what can be built, but under this Labor government the only thing being constructed is a catastrophe by design. The great Australian dream hasn't just been priced out; it has been evicted and replaced by a great Labor nightmare.

This Albanese Labor government has made the housing crisis in this country worse. They've taken the First Home Guarantee and turned it into a reckless non-means-tested free-for-all. By removing sensible income caps and targeted place limits they have supercharged house prices by 3.6 per cent in just one quarter. This five per cent deposit lure is being used to tempt young Australians into a market that is already boiling over. We've seen this movie before, and it ended in a global disaster. In 2008, housing collapse in America was an architecture of catastrophe built on the shaky ground of subprime lending and an erosion of deposit standards. By encouraging young families into a volatile market with minimal equity—and they have been geared to the absolute hilt—these young borrowers face extreme risks and are being forced into bloated mortgages for inflated homes. If this continues, this government will have paved the way for a generation of first home bankrupts.

Last week's interest rate rise—the second hike this year—has sent a shockwave through every family home. At Senate estimates, the Reserve Bank governor was clear, stating that these highly leveraged borrowers face higher risk and higher repayment costs. These families are at risk because they are geared more highly on overpriced homes, starting their journey on a financial razor's edge. Every rate rise cuts deeper into the family budget, and there is nothing left to give until the only choice remaining is to give the house back to the bank.

By replacing private insurance with a government guarantee, Labor is using tax dollars to fuel the very price hikes that make houses unaffordable. It is a circular firing squad of economic policy. Then we have the crowning jewel of failure: the Housing Australia Future Fund. The Albanese Labor government has locked away $11.4 billion in a bureaucratic nightmare. After 2½ years, how many houses has the Labor government built? A grand total of 895. At this rate, children in primary school today will be retirees before Labor finishes their first suburb. They are labouring under the delusion that a spreadsheet can provide shelter. The maths is as hollow as their promises. Labor is overseeing a historic collapse of construction. Under the previous coalition government, we completed 200,000 dwellings a year. Under Labor that has slumped to 170,000. All the while, the population has surged by more than 1.6 million people. How do you think those numbers can work?

This government is already running more than 80,000 dwellings short of its National Housing Accord target. The problem is that, instead of building, the government is busy fiddling with the capital gains tax and negative gearing. Labor dresses it up as an equity measure, but let's call it for what it is: it's a tax grab. It is a cynical distraction from the fact that Labor is failing on supply, failing on construction and failing on common sense. We see the human cost in Dawson every day. We see young people outbidding each other for rentals because they have no other choice. We see families who do everything right yet cannot get a foothold. Most heartbreakingly, we see women who have fled domestic violence left stranded, couch-surfing or car-sleeping because there's nowhere to go. Housing is a life-defining challenge. This government puts the ideological before people, and the result is higher taxes.

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