Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) | Hansard source

I talked to the parliament yesterday about what has happened to our housing market in this country since John Howard and Peter Costello reshaped our market in favour of investors over first home buyers. So let me take the parliament through it again. What we saw was investors flooding into the market, purchasing 80 to 90 per cent of existing Australian properties, and the consequences of that are not altogether surprising. What they have seen is a 400 per cent increase in house prices in the last 25 years.

Now, those opposite may think that a 400 per cent increase in house prices is a sustainable and good thing for the country. But let me be clear with you: the result of that is that homeownership rates for the young people of this country are falling through the floor. A low-income young couple in this country is half as likely to own their own home today as they were in the year that I was born.

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