Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I do not know if Senator Bartlett was here when Senator Lundy was talking. If he was he would be saying, ‘What am I worried about?’ because, according to Senator Lundy, this is easily solved: you have a summit on this and you have a summit in relation to the environment. The way this is going, these people will have a bad dose of ‘summit-itis’, and I suspect that we will probably recommend that there be a summit on why the Labor Party has not actually got any policies. A summit. That is the sum total of a Labor frontbencher’s contribution—no policies, no solution, no acknowledgement.

Today’s motion should be: ‘This Senate condemns the state Labor governments for their failure to give Australian families the opportunity to access affordable housing.’ The notion that the coalition is somehow responsible for increased house prices is about as believable as saying that two per cent of the population can name more than three Labor frontbenchers. It is totally unbelievable. For Senator Lundy to come in here today and talk about a summit and have no policies and try to blame the federal coalition for increasing house prices just shows how totally devoid the Australian Labor Party is of any policy to address any situation and why its members are simply not ready for—nor do they deserve—government.

The reality of the situation is that the federal government have set a number of scenarios to assist potential homeowners, including a real increase in wages, low unemployment and industrial relations changes that have given the small business community of this country the confidence to go out and employ again. Nearly 300,000 new jobs have been created in the workforce in the last 12 months, including 118,000 new jobs for women. But that on its own does not address this issue. The Labor Party should be acutely aware of the contribution we have made to the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement and the money that we are putting into the First Home Owners Scheme. We have now put around $6.9 billion into the scheme since we first introduced it under A New Tax System in 2000. We are giving rent assistance to low-income families and social security recipients. Billions of dollars, quite rightly, are going to where there is effective market failure.

Senator Bartlett, I hope you are not suggesting to the chamber today that you want to unilaterally withdraw negative gearing, because, if you think there is a housing crisis and a rental crisis now, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I am sure that is not part of the Australian Democrats’ policy, but, if it is, you stand utterly condemned for your failure to understand what is driving the present situation.