Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

For all the tonal modulation of Senator Sinodinos's comments, and the eminent reasonableness of those who might be listening to the words and glossing over them, the reality is that this is a government that simply does not acknowledge that affordable housing has become a myth in our capital cities. The reality is that, if you speak to any young person, the top of their list of worries is how they will ever afford their own home. They are the others, as I think Senator Sinodinos called them—the ones who cannot live in Mosman. That makes pretty well most of us the others.

This community knows that housing affordability is nearing a crisis level. The Labor Party knows that housing affordability is certainly in the crisis zone. It is only Labor, if you look at our history, that has attended to the reality of housing as a need for this community. It seems that it is only the coalition that just do not get it. The Treasurer made that very clear just last week with his ignorant and out-of-touch statement. For someone no less than the Treasurer of this nation to suggest that owning a home in Sydney is as simple as 'getting a good job that pays good money' shows how remarkably removed the Liberal-National government of this country are from the community.

This is from the man who said that poor people do not drive cars. Now he thinks they do not own homes. This is from the man who sat in Parliament House smoking a cigar on the day he was about to slash $80 billion from health and education budgets. This is from the man who is trying to increase university fees to add a further $100,000 debt to the burden of our young people before they even begin to think about entering the market for a house. An extra $100,000 might not seem like a big expense for the Treasurer—the cigar-smoking Treasurer of this nation—but it will certainly hit our young people hard. Will they attend university and try to get a good job to earn good money, as he directs, but end up with a $100,000 debt at the end? Or will they avoid uni and avoid the debt but still not be able to get job to earn enough money to buy a house? That is the catch-22 that the member for North Sydney, the Treasurer of this nation, is putting young Australians in. It is a terrible bind.

Sydney's median house price could crash through $1 million before the end of this year. It is a crisis. That amount of money is out of reach of the vast majority of Australians. It is an astronomical amount for the nation's teachers, nurses, police officers, truck drivers and ordinary working people with ordinary good, decent jobs making their contribution to this nation. Thirty years ago the median house price in Sydney was $88,000. We see now a 1,036 per cent increase in that median price over 30 years. Wages, by comparison, have increased by 215 per cent in the same period. There are really very few jobs that are good enough, to use the Treasurer's terrible language, to make up that sort of shortfall.

While the Liberal Party's response to the housing crisis is to tell people to get better jobs, Labor is putting housing affordability front and centre. We believe that housing is vitally important in social terms. It provides shelter, security, connection and a source of pride to every Australian. We all deserve to have a place we can call home. While in economic terms construction and housing finance are important indicators of Australia's economic performance, for some Australians housing affordability is about trying to meet rental payments on a place in the city. For others, it might be about being able to purchase a home in an area that allows them to be close to family and friends. For many people who have moved to the Central Coast, it means looking further than Sydney and making decisions to move away from family and networks of support to the north, where the prices have not reached such huge levels yet. Commuting to a job in the city is, sadly, a reality for too many of our population up there. Lack of housing affordability has the potential to exacerbate inequality between those who already own homes and those who cannot even get into the market. This leaves first home buyers in the unenviable situation of renting from those already established in the market and never being able to break in themselves.

Labor is proud of our record in government when it comes to housing policy. Labor is the only party that has a consistent record of pursuing innovative and effective policy that has improved housing affordability for Australians. Labor created the very post of minister for housing after John Howard cut back the affordable housing stock by more than 24,000 premises in his time in government. There is a difference. We are committed to improving housing affordability and we have created opportunities. Given the opportunity to come to government, these guys have cut and cut. Under Labor, we introduced the Social Housing Initiative, which provided funding of $5.6 billion over three years for the construction of new social housing; the A Place to Call Home initiative, which provided $150 million to make 600 homes and units across Australia available for families and individuals who are homeless; the National Affordable Housing Agreement, which provided $6.2 billion in housing assistance; $400 million under the National Partnership Agreement on Social Housing over two financial years for capital investment in social housing and homelessness; the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing, with an investment of $5.5 billion over 10 years; and a more than doubling of the $557 million of funding committed under the Howard government in relation to the memorandum of understanding on Indigenous housing.

What record does this government have to stand on? Already, in just 18 months, the National Housing Supply Council and the National Rental Affordability Scheme have been abolished. In addition, the First Home Saver Accounts scheme, set up under the Rudd government, providing assistance for saving, is about to be abolished—hardly actions that show any sympathy or understanding for young Australians struggling to purchase a home. They have constant thought bubbles and make disparaging comments that are an insult to the intelligence of young people who just want to get out there and create a home for themselves and their families. Joe Hockey says to use super to buy a home, and tells people to get a better job—that is what this government does. It is thought bubbles, it is platitudes, it is gentle conversation—all the while ripping away the vital investment that is part of building genuine affordable housing for Australians.