Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

That breaks my heart a little. I will speak to all three of the amendments and then we can move through the votes at a later time.

I thank Senator Cormann for directly addressing some of the questions that I put to him. I think there are obviously bigger debates in play. I was curious to hear Senator Cormann insisting that we had a supply problem and that demand, if anything, is not only not a problem but perhaps had been over incentivised. He was very careful not to mention negative gearing and capital gains tax exemption, which is obviously a very live debate, not just in this place at this time but around the country. One of the biggest unspoken incentives on the demand side at the moment are these huge tax expenditures which incentivise and directly drive demand for property investors to compete against first-time buyers and owner occupiers. I would be more than happy to engage very broadly on all elements of the debate.

If there is one thing that we can maybe all agree on, it is that our housing market is inordinately complex when you consider all the factors that are colliding around issues like land supply, whether it be on the periphery of our great cities or with respect to developers who are attempting infill, either along public transport corridors or in areas where they might come into conflict with existing residents; supply is clearly a problem. There are huge possibilities for innovation in building and construction costs and techniques. Yes, costs are high, although they certainly have not escalated anywhere near as rapidly as the cost of land.

The Australian Greens believe there is enormous potential, for example, in the modular or prefabricated housing industry. Here is an opportunity to kick-start a new manufacturing sector. When you get prefab housing and construction technologies to scale, you are looking at plants that are very similar and that employ people with very similar degrees of expertise to those in the auto industry. They are effectively production lines, whereby boxes of components go in at one end and fully formed dwelling units come out at the other end that are then basically assembled very rapidly on site. There is plenty to talk about on the supply side and on the construction side.

What bugs me is the unwillingness of the government to engage in the debate. Thank goodness that at least the Labor Party is willing to have the conversation and to engage in the debate on these other demand drivers that, as Senator Cormann quite correctly points out, are there in the system, but he refuses to engage in the debate around these huge tax expenditures and concessions to investors, which drive demand and drive competition. It is the first homebuyers and the owner-occupiers who are being priced out of the market—particularly an entire generation of younger people, but I am very well aware that it is not just young people who are priced out of the housing market.

If this is the case and if this is the status quo, whether we agree with negative gearing or the deal with these tax concessions, because dealing with those two on their own—I tend to agree with the comments of Senator Day, and it may be the first time I have said that in this place, or Senator Sinodinos when he addressed these questions directly yesterday—they are not a magic bullet. Addressing those concessions by themselves will not fix housing affordability; we need to look at the entire picture. That is why I think it is so wrong that this concession is being pulled out from under people, not necessarily because it succeeded too well or because it was costing too much but because the take-up is not high enough. Why can we not have an intelligent and mature conversation without one side focusing on the demand side and without the other side obsessing on the supply side? There are many complexities around the issue of housing affordability. As I indicated and as many others have indicated during the course of this debate, we need to engage with all of it, rather than have people obsessing on different components. For those people who are being priced out of the market at the moment, the first homebuyers, this is an incentive that would directly make it easier for them. It is my understanding, Senator Cormann, that you have voted for this initiative when it was first put in, as did your colleague Senator Bernardi. Senator Bernardi had some extremely forthright and quite perceptive things to say—