Gabriel Ng (Menzies, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Just this morning, the Treasurer introduced the bills for the most ambitious, reforming and courageous budget that we've seen this century. This is a budget that addresses a status quo in housing so that hardworking Australians who have the aspiration to own their own homes will be able to realise that aspiration. In the first speech that I was privileged to be able to deliver in this place, I talked about rising wealth inequality. The issue with rising wealth inequality is that it doesn't just deprive people of opportunity when we're talking about a limited resource like housing; it is also damaging to social cohesion. It means that, when people see that they can't get ahead, they lose hope, and they lose faith in the system being able to deliver for them.

The 50 per cent capital gains tax discount was introduced in 1999. Since it was introduced in combination with negative gearing, it has turbocharged housing prices. The cost of a home, when the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount was introduced, was four times the average annual wage, and it's now eight times the average annual wage. So there has been a 400 per cent increase in housing unaffordability. That's a broken system. It's a broken status quo. And we can't continue on that trajectory. Not surprisingly, homeownership rates have declined as the cost of housing has increased, and it has particularly declined amongst younger people. We're locking a generation out of housing if we continue on this trajectory, and this is a generation of young people who are working hard and who are saving and still can't get a foothold in the housing market.

Last week, I went out doorknocking in my community in Menzies, in Mont Albert. Mont Albert, for those that are familiar with Victoria, is not a particularly low-socioeconomic area. The houses there are pretty big. I was curious to see how our budget measures had gone down there. I do a lot of doorknocking because I think it's really important to get feedback from locals on the measures that we're taking, and I think it's the best way to get honest feedback—having a conversation with people at their door. I knocked on the doors of younger people who were living in the electorate, and, not surprisingly, they really welcomed these changes. Many of them recognised that the system had been stacked against them for a long time because of tax breaks for housing investors. Those housing investors hadn't been doing the wrong thing. They were investing in housing. But it did mean that younger people were getting locked out of the market. They would go to auctions and they would bid, but they would just be outpriced by housing investors who were able to draw on the equity of their existing properties in order to make higher bids. That is part of the reason that we've seen this decline in homeownership.

We also have had many people contact my office, not just after this budget but prior to this budget, who were talking about the housing system being broken. Those aren't just younger people, but those are older people as well, who recognise that changes to the capital gains tax discount and changes to negative gearing might not advantage them, but they recognise how important it is that everybody and future generations have the opportunity for homeownership. When I was doorknocking, I met some of those people—people in their 50s and 60s who were living at home with kids in their 20s, and they recognised that their children didn't have the opportunity to get into the housing market, and they were concerned as well that their children wouldn't be able to buy houses close to them and that they wouldn't be able to play a role in their grandchildren's future, should their children choose to have children themselves, because they would have to live so far away and so far out that they wouldn't be able to provide that care, and being able to live closer together in well-located homes in suburbs is such an important thing for families. That's a trajectory that we can't continue on.

We also have a youth advisory council in my electorate. These are young people aged 16 to 24. A really common thing that they'll say is that they think that they'll never be able to own their own home. That's why we need to make sure that we're making these changes and addressing this growing wealth inequality and a generation that's locked out of housing. That's exactly what we're doing. Importantly, we're still allowing negative gearing to be made available for new homes, and that's because we know that we want to increase supply to increase affordability.

See this speech in context