Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to make a contribution to this debate. I think it is a good thing that the Greens have raised this issue, as the Labor Party has been over a period of time now consulting with state governments, the building industry, economists and welfare groups to try to develop a more sophisticated response to this issue than we have seen from the coalition in government.

There are a number of barbecue stoppers around the place—the unfair budget, the broken promises, the government incompetence—but housing affordability is the guaranteed barbecue stopper in the Sydney region, where I live. For Treasurer Hockey to say what you have to do is get a good job that pays good money, I think, really simplifies and misunderstands the problems that we have with housing in Sydney. The argument that the Treasurer made that if housing were unaffordable in Sydney, then no-one would be buying again demonstrates a lack of understanding of the issues that are the problem in Sydney. This ranks with the Treasurer's analysis that poor people do not drive cars. It is completely out of touch with the issues we face.

I keep my eye on what is happening in Sydney because people keep coming to me and saying, 'Look, it's almost impossible for a first homebuyer to get into the market in Sydney.' One person told me recently about a tarted-up, refurbished fibro, three-bedroom house, ex-Housing Commission in Northmead, just outside Parramatta in Sydney that went for $960,000 at auction. I think there is a madness at play in Sydney. Who would have thought that an ex-Housing Commission house, a fibro house, tarted up, many kilometres from the CBD, outside Parramatta, would cost nearly a million dollars. That is what is happening in the Sydney market at the moment.

This is a complex issue, and Senator Sinodinos has raised a number of the issues: low-interest rates, for example. Negative gearing is an issue and to have people in this place to dismiss it does not do any good for the debate. Capital-gains tax exemptions are an issue; housing supply is an issue; land supply; the planning systems; infrastructure; employment; and international capital flooding into Sydney—these are some of the issues that we face. Senator Sinodinos has made a thoughtful contribution, much more so than Senator Canavan's contribution, because Senator Sinodinos does raise some of the issues, but I disagree with Senator Sinodinos that the Prudential Regulation Authority can fix this problem. That is rubbish; it is not going to happen. Having the Reserve Bank monitoring interest rates will not solve the problem either. What has been argued by Senator Sinodinos is that there has to be a comprehensive and balanced tax reform agenda, but the government is not going to have a comprehensive tax reform agenda in place, and so that is not the solution either.

I disagree with the position that Senator Sinodinos adopts when he talks about Sydney's fringe. I have always lived on the so-called fringe of Sydney, because it is all that I have been able to afford. As a blue-collar worker and as a union official with my wages tied to the blue-collar workers that I represented, I could never afford to be in the Inner City or the Inner West; I was always in the Western Suburbs of Sydney. That fringe needs a number of things. It needs more employment, where we can build the jobs; it needs more employment, where the people live; it needs more public transport. These are all the issues that we need to deal with. To simply do what the government has done in cutting homeless services, getting rid of the National Rental Affordability Scheme, getting rid of housing help for seniors, getting rid of the first homeowners savings accounts, getting rid of the Prime Minister's Council on Homelessness—these are all negatives. We actually do need a position that is much more sophisticated than Senator Canavan's argument that, on the one hand, we cannot have big government and we must have small taxes and then, on the other hand, that we must supercharge development in the Northern Territory to fix our housing problem. How dumb, how dopey is that? I always thought there was a problem with having an economist as a member of the National Party. It just shows that you can be an economist as long as you are a bad one in the National Party. This is a real problem and there is no simple fix. (Time expired)