Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A survey of my electorate last week showed that housing access and affordability worries my constituents more than anything except climate change. Housing is a basic need, and we're now facing significant challenges that have taken decades to make and can't be fixed instantly. There are now supply and structural challenges all along the housing continuum, from crisis accommodation and social and community housing to rental housing, affordable housing and homeownership. At the acute end, there are about 19,000 households on the social housing waiting list in WA alone, with an average wait time of about two years. Renters are facing huge increases and no availability.

Emma, a constituent, wrote to me this week and said:

I can name at least 5 friends who are now facing debt or homelessness because they cannot afford the 33% rise in their rent and they no longer qualify for rental assistance.

Owning a house is becoming increasingly out of reach. Emma, who's 25, also said:

I can't see how I'll be able to afford a house in my lifetime without having to rely either on my partner or parents. It terrifies me that people who are in unhealthy or abusive relationships are now at the mercy of their breadwinning partner to secure shelter.

Emma is right. When I was a kid, the average house price was 3.3 times the average income; it's now 10 times the average income. Many young people can't see a path to homeownership, which has a huge impact on their outlook in a range of areas.

At the moment, the lack of housing supply is exacerbated by supply chain and construction industry constraints, as well as the COVID bounce back on immigration. So why is it so hard to fix this? In the housing shortage after the Second World War we built a huge amount of social housing, and for decades living in social housing was seen as an acceptable and respectable long-term option. This has changed. It's now only an option in extreme circumstances. In the private housing market, policy settings need to balance the interests of four groups: current homeowners, who have their savings tied up in their house as their key asset; prospective owners, who want to own a home but can't get into the market; renters, who may not want or be able to get into homeownership; and investors, who may have invested their superannuation or other savings in property based on expectations about the regulatory environment in the property market. All these groups have valid concerns, some of which are in direct conflict.

To address these conflicts fairly we need to take a long-term view to any changes, which is bad news for those looking for housing now. But major change is politically unpalatable. The housing package, which is stuck in the Senate at the moment, is better than nothing and better than we've seen in 10 years, but it will not solve the broader problems. The major parties are gridlocked. No party is willing to consider changes that have losers, so most changes in housing policy have thrown fuel on the fire. They've injected more money into housing, whether through first homeowner grants or accessing super to buy a home. So what are the solutions? There's no simple solution, but it's clear that we need to make some big decisions in this area. We need to put all the ideas back on the table and have a national conversation about how we're approaching housing.

I asked my constituents what housing reform they wanted to see, and they've come up with a broad range of ideas over just the last two days. They suggested lots of ways to increase the available supply of housing, like: incentivising pensioners to downsize; incentivising investors to sell to first homeowners; taxing vacant property; releasing more local state and federal land; incentivising the building of smaller homes; and various approaches to dropping or reducing capital gains tax concessions or negative gearing—for example, if properties are not occupied by long-term renters. They suggested improvements to rental supply too. I'm not saying all of these ideas will work, but people like David, Marg, Barry, Don, Elizabeth, Paul, Lee, Henry, Thilini, Geoffrey, Alan, Barbara and Daniel want to see their ideas being seriously considered.

I urge the government to have an open-minded national conversation to find some circuit breakers. We need to move beyond the political constraints and work out how we get back to a position where Australians have somewhere to live and can aspire to owning their own place one day. I urge the government to be bold and start a broader conversation today. I urge the opposition and crossbench to create the multipartisan space for this discussion and not treat it as a point-scoring exercise.