Simon Kennedy (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Housing affordability has never been tougher. Housing has never been more out of reach than it is for this current generation, and it's hard to tell what it will do to the social fabric of this country if it's allowed to continue this way.

We talk a lot about housing supply. Yes, we build 170,000 dwellings a year, but there's a simple truth: if housing supply does not match population growth, you'll see prices go up and housing become less affordable, be it buying a house or renting a house. Unfortunately, immigration settings have been far too strong and allowed to run far ahead of housing completions. At a time when we've brought over 1.2 million new Australians into the country, we've added fewer than 500,000 homes. That simply does not work. Unfortunately, housing is inelastic. You cannot just create a few houses overnight. You have to go through planning, financing and construction—lengthy delays. So any mismatch between population growth and housing supply sees substantial price increases. The same is likely true if we can have housing supply outstrip population growth. That needs to be the aim. We need to increase housing supply and reduce population growth so these two metrics are in equilibrium, and this is something this government has failed at incredibly dismally. That is why we see such a stark increase in house prices.

Similarly, some of the metrics on the supply side are not increasing homeownership. We're seeing subsidies for super funds and institutional investors to build to rent. We have given multibillion-dollar subsidies, in some cases, to bring on new housing. These subsidies would be far better directed at Australian mums and dads, aspiring young Australians who want to get into the housing market. These are the people we should be subsidising and backing to make Australia more affordable. These are the people who are also punished by unsustainably high immigration levels. These are the ones whose local areas are getting crowded as they fight for sporting fields, for car parks and for places in local public schools and see housing become increasingly unaffordable.

And, yes, this government's reckless spending is adding even more difficulty to that. Because government spending is at a 40-year high—outside of the pandemic—we are seeing inflation run rampant through people's pay cheques and interest rates climb higher and higher. Australia having the highest inflation of any advanced economy in the world made it extremely vulnerable to a fuel shock. Now we have that fuel shock, inflation is running even higher and even more rampant, and we are faced with even more interest rate rises. The average Australian family is now paying in excess of $25,000 a year more in interest alone on their mortgage. That's before you add in the cost of energy bills, inflation and increased taxation for bracket creep.

What we now need to do is balance immigration with housing supply. We've never had more of a reason to do it than now. We need to focus on housing supply measures. Policies such as the first home owner guarantee are continuing to fuel demand at a time when demand should be taken off with the volumes of new immigrants entering this country. Even on social and affordable housing, this government's record is equally concerning. The Housing Australia Future Fund now holds around $11.4 billion, yet, after more than two years, it's delivered fewer than 900 homes. It's raised $11.4 billion in taxpayer revenue, delivering just 900 homes. This isn't a delivery problem at the margins; it's a fundamental failure of execution. Australians are being promised a step change in housing supply, but, instead, what they are seeing is extremely worrying. Money is sitting around in a fund while a shortage continues, and the government won't address the problem that's staring it in the face—that is, increased population growth and increased immigration levels. It should be reduced now to match housing supply.

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